Feeding Time

I paused, placing the pan back in the oven. The heat from the open door washed over my arms as I looked at my hands on the pot holders.
Only moments before they had been buried deep inside a cow, struggling to get chains around the hooves of a huge calf that needed all the help we could give to enter this world at all, much less alive.
Now those hands, hastily scrubbed, were checking on the meal I had started before all hell broke lose calving.
I worried a bit about dirt left under the nails. Then assured myself I wasn’t actually touching any food with them. Shutting the oven door I finished the switch from one persona back into the other heading outside to check on the calf.
The family would have food on the table for supper, now I needed to make sure the calf did too.