Steps goal exceeded, cattle issues, a sad loss

Early Saturday morning I started a fire in one of the voids we have in the patio in back of the house. There are three seven-foot open circles in the patio. One has Cana Lilies growing in it on purpose. One had become our burn pit used for roasting hot dogs and s’mores. The third has some of the Cana Lilies in it as well but I have wanted to get rid of those bulbs and find another purpose that circle. Since I had a great deal of limbs to burn from a tree trimming spree I had a couple weekends ago, I started a fire in the pit I wanted to empty of the Cana bulbs and over the course of the day gathered all those limbs and burned them in that circle. I do not know if it killed out all the lilies, but I am sure it killed most of them, saving me the effort of digging them up and discarding them. Plus, it provided a lot of pot ash for the soil in that circle.

My plan is to ring that circle, fill it with good soil and give Mama a flowerbed to decorate as she sees fit. Hopefully, we will get some type of small ornamental tree as a centerpiece for the flowerbed, but we have not decided. In all the hauling of limbs and gathering of items to burn I registered 19,747 steps for the day. As I lay in bed that night, I told Mama I should have walked once around our circular driveway and gotten to 20,000 steps but I lost that opportunity. I was sufficiently worn out and lying in bed felt too good to abandon – even for a worthy cause.

Sunday was not a good day for us. As Mama and I went about the morning feeding, I went to check on the calf because she was lying down in what looked like an awkward position. She was in distress and it looked like she was not going to make it through the day. I had fed her the night before and saw no signs of her feeling badly. She had cleaned up all her feed and hay, so I was not sure what the problem could be. Mama called the vet and stayed home that morning to wait on the vet while Victoria and I went to church.

Victoria and I headed out reluctantly, but as we left the farm, we found a group of three young calves on the road and we were not able to get past them. As we drove toward the main road the calves stayed in front of the vehicle to the point that we were driving them ever closer to a busy road. So, I backed the vehicle up and met up with Mama who was in the barn lot, watching over our sick calf. Mama, in turn, called a few folks to alert them that we had cows in the road and to see if any of them would mind driving down the road toward us to herd the claves back to safety into our property. When that happened, it happened all at once. First our neighbor turned onto our road and headed the calves our direction. Immediately behind him came the vets – the wife in one vehicle and her husband in a second vehicle. Once the cows were through an open gate onto our neighbor’s property, the vets went to look at our cow and our neighbor headed to church. As did Victoria and I.

The vets, a husband-and-wife team, were not able to determine the cause of our calf’s sickness but gave her a shot of anti-inflammatory medicine and a shot of Penicillin. They checked the barn, the feed, and the hay to see if they could find anything obvious. They found nothing that could help them determine the cause. By the time they left, it was too late for Mama to get to church, but Victoria and I enjoyed being there. The fact that we arrived after the Sunday School class had started caused the pastor some angst, but we at least made it in plenty of time for me to lead the music for the morning service. That was not the case Sunday night.

By late afternoon it was clear that the calf was not going to make it. I was very hesitant to put her down, so I delayed as long as I could and by the time I could wait no longer, I went over armed to put her out of her misery, but she was already dead. Meanwhile, we had called the neighbor that owns the large property to our east and he told Mama he had a particular area to place the carcass of the dead calf where the carrion eaters can dispose of the remains. That was a blessing since Mama and I have nowhere to put an 800 pound carcass on our ten acres. In waiting on our neighbor to show us the spot to place the carcass, we missed church that night.

As Grandpa and I waited, to our surprise, our neighbor came to the farm with his large tractor prepared to haul the calf to the drop spot for us even though Grandpa and I had prepared to make the transfer once we were shown the spot. It was fairly easy for him to load the calf, but it was good for Grandpa and I to be there to help get it positioned for him to access. Our neighbor let us know that when he had deposed the carcass as required, he thought Mama and I ought to check the water the calf had been drinking in case that was the cause of her death. I am pretty sure it was not, but we will check. He suggested that because he said the calf looked like it had been very healthy and well cared for and could not see any reason for the death. Neither could we or the vet.

It was a sad loss, and we may never know the reason.