Thirteen and a Half Cows and a Runaway Hay Bale

Hunting season has arrived in full force. We heard multiple gun shots over breakfast, but when we heard dogs close by, Phil went out. He was walking by the cows when he noticed that Bianca had something hanging out her backside.

"We have thirteen and a half cows," he said as soon as he could reach the house.

Now I watched Bianca's breeding,nine months ago, and she wasn't due until December 4. I had intended to walk her over to the dry lot next Friday—the other Milking Devons with fixed due dates have birthed within hours of the expected time. I understand that ten days early is fairly extreme for a cow.

Would the baby be okay? Or was Bianca miscarrying? What a blessing that Phil "just happened" to be walking by the pen at that moment.

We headed over to look, and when we reached her, she was already licking a very new, wet, living calf. Keen-eyed Phil stood in a strategic spot and, when Bianca licked to lift the baby's leg, he saw teats! Another girl! Welcome, Clara!

The boys and Phil left shortly. I find myself though absolutely in awe of that beautiful first hour. Good Bianca licking the mucus off the body. Clara blowing bubbles of mucus out the end of her nose. Bianca's constant, gentle lowing as she acquaints her baby with her voice. Clara's first butt-up attempt to stand. That attempt ending in a complete tumble as the four legs got entirely mixed up. The next three attempts, with time in between to rest and catch her breath. Bianca laying down to, hopefully, birth the placenta (which didn't happen). The baby shivering a bit, despite the warmth of the sun (I was in short sleeves).

I asked Bianca, while she was laying down, if I should cover her shivering baby with my sweatshirt. She rolled her eyes and immediately got to her feet. The baby, then, seemed much more motivated to stand. So I kept my sweatshirt to myself.

Then the first stumbling steps. The immediate urgency to nurse. Clara poked around the neck, by the tail, behind the front legs. But when she reached the back teats, even though they neatly framed her face for a moment, she then stepped forward, walked underneath her mama, oblivious.

About that time I decided to leave. I figured that Bianca has raised plenty of babies without human intervention, so I needn't panic that this toddling sweetie would be the first to simply not figure out how to nurse.

A couple hours later I walked back to check on them. They had moved a good ways upslope, and in the shadow of her mama, the baby rests well.

The baby also knew exactly where to go for food. Bianca knew exactly how to nudge her baby into place. Such beautiful focus and assurance on the part of both baby and mama.

I noticed with delight that the tip of her tail ends in white. Strikingly unusual in our herd of red.

Finally, an artist's impression of the day: Isaiah asked me for things to paint, and when I suggested an egg, he did a blue egg, as Pertelote used to lay. He also painted Bitsy, the house (with corner of the barn showing a bit), and Bianca and Clara. For what could be just a few smudges, I really like that mama and baby!


***

The dry lot cows were in need of hay. (But to quickly offer praise to the Lord: we knew we were running low. Yesterday morning, a neighbor who had promised a square bale a few weeks back showed up with it. On Thanksgiving! Exactly when we needed it, but would not have dared ask.)

Phil went to pick up a few bales this evening. He reached the farm right as the sun set, and quickly got the two bales loaded. About two miles from our house, right where the dirt road transitions to gravel, there's a little used gravel road. And there, in the rapidly increasing dark, one of the haybales slipped over the ties and rolled away.

For some reason, Phil had suspected this might happen, and he stopped right afterwards and rolled the 1200 pound bale off the road and into a ditch.

Later this evening, we went to try to roll it up some boards (our "ramp") and into the truck bed. And while we did get it out of the ditch, despite Phil's strength, the force of gravity completely defeated us. How aggravating to have the bale be just four (vertical) feet from where we needed it!

So we drove home again and then put into action Phil's original plan. He drove the tractor, I drove the truck behind as his buffer. I had been expecting this trek to be excruciating. So I was pleasantly surprised that the tractor didn't go at just 3 or 4 mph, but went about a zippy 10. Back at the bale site, it did not appear that any vehicles sustained damage (we hadn't had the heart to push it back into the ditch). Phil put the bale on the hay spear, and then drove home, with me following the strange, shaggy round yellow face. It was unlike any view I'd had before: two and a half miles behind something that looked like an enormous hula skirt.

Happily, the bale stayed together, and we are safely home now, with feed for our cows for a little while.