One of Those Days

Have you ever had one of those days? Well, mine all started when Hubby went down to help with our nephew's bridge. It needed some repairs.  Anyway, he had been gone for a while when I noticed that we needed some wood brought down from the wood shed. So I get all bundled up to go out and as I'm going out, I noticed we had a cow in the pasture standing by herself licking on, what looked like, the ground. I thought that looked kind of weird because that's not something cows do, I took our binoculars and the four wheeler around to the road to see if I could get a closer look.  Sure enough, she had had her calf. And, it was stuck in a mud hole. Great.

I speed back to the house to to get the keys to the gates.(Yes, we have to lock our gates. People used to steal cattle and horses here.) I don't really know which keys will fit, so I bring all three that I have.  I race back to the gate and try to open it. No such luck. None of the keys fit. So I race back to the house,(By this time, I'm soooo glad we have a four wheeler.The gate is a long way away from our house.) call down to where Hubby is. No answer. Of course not, he is outside! So I call his dad.  Finally someone answers the phone. I tell them the situation and they said they will be right out. So I go back to wait on them. I don't see any movement from the calf. The momma cow is just standing over it.

They finally get there and unlock the gate. Me and Hubby's dad take the four wheeler over to the calf and momma. We figured we would just back up to it, grab the calf and get it out of the mud.  As we get closer, we realize there is mud all over. Deep, deep mud. As we back up to get the calf, Momma doesn't like the idea. She starts to get mad and come  toward us. Hubby's dad says for me to GO! Can't, WE ARE STUCK! I rock the four wheeler hoping to get traction. Luckily right at the last minute, we get traction and we get out of her way.  Whew!  We did find out that the calf was still alive though.

Now what? Hubby has our tractor down to his nephew's house. So I go and see about the neighbor. He has a four wheel drive tractor.  Of course, he is not there, but his wife told us to take the tractor. Still, we needed someone who could lift the calf.  So Hubby's dad goes down to get Hubby. More waiting.

They finally get back with help. Hubby driving the tractor, Hubby's dad and his nephew in the bucket of the tractor.  They get to the calf and picked it up into the bucket. By this time the bull, who is the babysitter, didn't want them getting the calf so they had to watch him too. He could do some MAJOR damage to the tractor.

They brought the calf to the house because it wasn't doing too good. Plus, at this time, Mommy cow was interested in getting her something to eat. Poor thing.

As we got it to the house, I had gotten blankets and towels all ready. Good thing our floor is still concrete in our house because that wasn't just mud that that calf had been laying in. Peeeeeeee Yeeeewwwwwww!!!! We rub and rub all over the calf trying to get some circulation going and trying to dry him off. He finally  starts shivering. Good sign.

We work on him for a few hours. He still wouldn't stand up. He didn't have any strength. He wouldn't eat either so we had to force some milk replacer down him. He took quite a bit. That gave us hope also.

During all of this we hadn't been paying attention to Skeeter. She had to gooooooooo. And she did, under the pool table. I couldn't get mad at her, she tried to get our attention. And while I was trying to get wood in, the cat ran outside. Great. Now I have to catch him. He can't be outside with his leukemia. I finally got him back in. That was an experience in itself. Then we had to feed all the animals. By this time it was dark outside. I hate feeding in the dark.

Anyway, after all that we did for the little feller, he died around 3:30 in the morning. It was probably for the best. He was so weak after being in the mud. The cow probably wouldn't have took him back after we had been rubbing on him for so long. It's sad, but that's what you get for living on a farm.

Now to clean up all of this mud (poop) that's all over my floor.

So until next time,

Small Farm Girl, poop cleaner upper.