Midnight cowboys

I did get to do some work in the apartment last night. It was not much but it allowed a little progress. Mama was supposed to help me but that did not seem to work out. I am not sure what distracted her. Later, when she was available, she told me she needed to get off of her feet for a while. Grandpa was available and he and I got the cabinets off of the truck. Working with him to unload the cabinets was a much more pleasant experience than loading them.


It was after I had gotten dressed for bed that all the excitement came. Grandma had not been feeling well all day and was continuing her supine vigil of the southern view of the farm from her bedroom window. I still this morning do not completely understand where the urgency came from but it appeared that one of the neighbors cows had gotten out and was walking the road and our fence line toward the mobile home.

Our young, freshly weaned calves were congregating on our side of the fence trying to poke their heads through the barbed wire far enough to get in on the new milk delivery that was just out of their reach. It is the first time the calves had been in that particular pasture. They were getting pretty excited about the fringe benefits.

Grandma was in high gear, scolding, encouraging, barking orders, worried over our calves – which are, by nature, incredibly stupid. They needed to be brought closer to the calf lot under the watch of the big dogs. She had a good point; good enough that Mama, Victoria and I went back out to round up the calves and herd the errant cow back home. Mama headed for the barn to get some grain in a bucket and Victoria and I went to the roadway to separate the young calves and the older cow. She headed up the road without any coaxing; the young calves were a different matter. They have not been trained to come on command and they were distracted by the mama cow racing away from them to her herd – taking all of that fresh, warm milk with her..

We have a set of older calves that Grandpa has trained to come by simply calling them. “Woo cow. Woo cow.” He will call from the calf lot and they will come running; boy do they come running. Sometimes it scares Grandpa a little. They know it is time to get the fed the sweet stock they all love so much. I do not know if the last one there is a rotten egg, but the last one definitely gets less to eat.

The younger set of calves is not trained to that call yet but Mama tried it anyway. “Woo cow. Woo cow.” She called while she was beating the bucket. A few of the younger set came out of curiosity and because they recognized her as the bottle bearer from their early calf-hood memories. Victoria herded the rest while I closed gaps and eventually all of them came into the area we needed them in.

The problem was that all the older calves congregated also expecting to get fed - again. They were carrying on in an awful way as Mama neared the calf lot. They carried on so much that all the younger calves hurried over to them to see what they were missing. They are separated into a different pasture (and a different feed lot) in order to keep the feeding fair because the bigger calves would not care if the smaller ones starved to death while they beat them out of the available grass and feed. With all the little ones safe in the smaller lot and the chickens put up for the night, we went back inside. The bigger calves spent the next hour protesting their empty feeders.

I love this life!