In Which I Break Reese's Neck (Or Something Like That)

A bug flew in my ear at 4:30 this morning. Hardly awake, I remember smooshing it, then wondering why our bed was crawling with maggots, so that they were even crawling in my ear.

This horrifying thought was so awful, I immediately came fully awake, and didn't relax enough to go back to sleep. So I spent several happy hours going through messy files on the computer and messy piles of papers on my desk. Not quite clean, but I feel like I am making progress on getting the living space a bit better.

The family looked around for a good tree for a treehouse. At some point, hopefully we'll build one. We then headed down to milk Reese, all boys coming: Joe because he follows me, Abraham because he wanted to machete, the older two because they wanted to shoot the Cricket.

Reese was ruminating, and the only way to get Reese up is to put the halter on. She's strong and impervious to collar tugging.

Eventually, Phil and I did manage to get her up. Fern approached me in a way that appeared aggressive, and I am definitely jumpy around her now. Since yesterday, she's developed the sneaky habit of purposefully walking on the wrong side of the tree I'm passing, causing constant hang-ups.

She pushed her head into a small copse of trees, and there was no way to get her out. Like a naughty child, I didn't want her to get away with such bad behavior, lest she grow obdurate in her irritating tricks. But just then, one of the heifers approached her, and she side-stepped around another small tree.

At this point, Phil started yelling at me to drop the lead rope, but I didn't hear a thing. I watched in horror as Reese fell heavily (again). But this time, the lead was wrapped around a tree, holding her head imprisoned, completely turned back along her side.

She took an agonized breath, and Phil yelled at me to loosen her lead. But she had fallen tight and hard enough, with her lead rope under her 1200 pound body (or something like that), I couldn't figure out how to loosen it. And her halter, tight at the best of times, was now impossibly tight. Another agonized breath.

In the end, I hoisted her heavy head, and Phil was able to unsnap her lead, then take off her halter.

And there she lay. Tail twitching, but without any movement from her legs. We would nudge her legs: nothing. I tempted her with treats. No movement. The other cows came over, curious. No movement.

Phil was convinced her neck was broken. I didn't remember hearing a crack, but then, I hadn't heard Phil yell to drop the rope, so I wasn't sure my senses were reliable. And she had acted like that before....

While Phil headed home to get the cows more water (they had gone through much more than we expected), I headed to the field to watch the boys shoot the Cricket. Jadon had a shot almost on the bullseye, and was quite pleased.

Abraham cut down little trees. He really hacks hard with that machete!

What was oddest to me was that I had no real sorrow or guilt. I guess it was so fast, so unexpected, and so unavoidable, there was no reason for me to feel guilt.

I felt worse when Phil came back and ran over the expensive milk pail. I must have been very oblivious, because I had two pails, nesting. Knowing that Phil would be backing the large truck down the road to water the cows, I apparently lifted the smaller pail out and hung it up, not noticing that I had left the larger pail on the open ground. And since I am usually extremely careful about making sure I get both pails: how did I miss it this time? That was avoidable, and I had even taken actions to try to avoid it.

Phil came back with the water saddened that he had found four more broilers harried to death by a dog, despite the electric fence, and another one dead in the electric line.

This was turning into one expensive evening!

And then, just as I was saying that I would need to get the rifle, since it wasn't right to leave Reese injured on the ground overnight, Reese kicked out with all four legs. A convulsion? Or sign of intact spine?

Phil and I had tried to roll her over on her backbone the last time she went down, and she had really kicked out vigorously. So we flipped her again, this time without trouble. And then she raised her head and tucked her legs under her. I dumped a bit of her grain (leftover from when we bought her) just out of reach, and she stood up slowly and walked forward.

Then she walked over, and I milked out less than half a gallon, and we went home for the night.

My peace and joy have not left, though, despite four hours of sleep and some of the most stressful events since moving here. For that, I say thank you, Lord!