Quality social time

It was a week or two ago, I was sitting in our four-wheeler filling the water tank and watching our steers. When it's hot, it may take 30 minutes to fill the 10- or 12-foot tank. The five of them were there by the tank kind of taking a break and enjoying the cooler evening. The black one was grazing. The Jersey steers were "socializing." The biggest and oldest of the steers and one other steer were licking the hair of a third steer. This third steer was standing there enjoying the attention. Sometimes they are selfish, like when we dump grain out to them. But as far as giving attention to each other, there doesn't seem to be any selfishness.

I knew they licked each other on a regular basis. You could see on their hair how it had been licked slick. The steers weren't dirty so this wasn't the reason. It was as if this was a way of socializing for them. Kind of like on almost a daily basis the steers will lay down in the shade together and chew their cud. They kind of regurgitate the mornings grazing and re-chew it to tenderize it and make it easier to digest. This seems to be another way of socializing for the steers.

Cats socialize as well. Cats will lick each other. It seems like that's a way of showing friendship among them. I've watched shows of how monkeys will sit and pick bugs off other monkeys. I always figured they were picking fleas, but never did a search to find out.

Down through the years, I've been around people with a different way of being around people or socializing. A really good friend of ours liked to go to the mall and just be around people. He'd sit and visit and just enjoy the congestion. I'm glad he enjoyed it. When we go to a farmers market to either sell or buy or just look, Marge likes to visit with everyone. So she will make the rounds visiting all the venders. Some seem to really enjoy garage sales. A friend of ours would write down all the garage sales she wanted to check out and number them in the order she wanted to check them out. So they'd go from garage sale to garage sale just like she had mapped it out. I like to hit a few if it's convenient and the goods look appealing.

One of my favorite ways to socialize is to sit and have coffee together. I thoroughly enjoy this. Kind of lay aside all the worries and cares of the moment and the day and enjoy. When Marge and I travel, we like to search out both wineries and coffee shops. Marge doesn't like coffee, but she will tolerate me having a cup.

I probably get this sit and coffee and visit thing from back growing up. Mom and Dad would tote us boys to a neighbor's to visit. Most times Mom would take along some cookies or a pie or some sweets to have with the coffee. Most everyone drank coffee, which was usually Folgers. So they'd sit around and visit about the goings on and the rumors and the gossip and the weather and the hay or grass and the cattle or the garden or the fishing or the kids.

Socializing can happen spontaneously, but most of the time we kind of need to plan for it to happen. A time to lay aside the cell phones and just relax. There needs to be a time when a family lays aside the pressures and concerns of the day and time and just enjoy each other. The best way is to sit down and eat together. A really good way is a hotdog roast. Or a cook out. Or a meal at a local restaurant. Or meet at the local ice cream shop and enjoy some sweets together. But then our one son and his daughter make a really mean ice cream shake that can "almost" take the place of coffee.