Perils of a Poultry Princess

I do believe the cows are trying to kill me.

 I have evidence.

While Clint is at work, it is my job to check cows that are due to calve. Laboring cows love to find the most hidden away, hard to get to places to calve. So, I bounced out into the pasture on my bright orange Kubota (it’s like a golf cart on steroids)  to find 45 (that was the number on her ear tag when we got her and even when the ear tag is gone, the name stays) She is a Charolais cross, which are notorious for having trouble calving. This was also her first calf, which can also be a problem.

  I found her, right in the middle of the calves under the trees right on a ledge above the creek. It wasn’t so late in the summer that the creek was dry, there were still deep hollows filled with water and cottonmouths and the occasional stranded fish.  

  She looked to be in trouble. She strained and pushed. I could see the calves front feet poke out, then go back in. She strained again, raising her head off the ground, eyes bulging with the strain. I called Clint.

  “Go get the pulling chains! You may have to pull that calf! Call Trevor!” he said. “If she gets in more trouble, I’ll call Garland to come help.” I flew away in the Kubota and ran into the shop and grabbed the chains and an old towel.

   When I got there, OUT popped the calf right in front of me. I was so glad I wasn’t going to have to pull it. My happiness was shortlived.

  As soon as the calf tried to stand up, it teetered toward the edge of the cliff. I prayed and yelled  NO NO NO…but the calf fell off the cliff. It landed about 3 feet down, right above a pile of brush….right above a deep water hole. Every time it stood up, it fell further. I got off the Kubota and pondered my options.

   I waited until 45 got distracted by Maggie the dog. Maggie was walking lower down and 45 ran toward her to run her away from her calf. I tiptoed toward the calf and grabbed ahold of it’s tiny back foot and started pulling it up toward the top of the ravine.

  That’s when Maggie shot up TOWARD me, drawing 45’s attention to ME and that’s also when a few things were hit home in sudden clarity and sureness: I am FORTY ONE YEARS OLD. I am NOT built for speed. I CANNOT run UPHILL while dragging a 75 pound calf. I am NOT faster than a hacked off cow.

  You know that sound the T. Rex on the movie Jurassic Park? That’s the sound I heard as 45 chased me up the ravine. I felt her hot breath on the back of my legs just before her head came up under my rear end and I saw the top of the tree as I was thrown into it. I hit branches on the way down and slammed into the dirt on my left side. 45 was waiting on me, and used her head to pound me into the side of the tree. I had fallen about 7 feet from the air and was stunned and had the wind knocked out of me, but I knew to curl around the tree and cover my head. She suddenly stopped pummeling me and turned.

  That’s when I rolled over and saw she was trying to kick me. Instinctively, I threw my right hand up and felt the hoof graze it. Then she stepped backward onto the bicep of my right arm. I felt my muscles and skin burn. She ran away back to her calf and I just lay there.

  There I was, on the ground, on my back, staring up at the trees. It was weirdly quiet and all I could hear was 45 sniffing and snuffing and mooing gently to the new calf. I sat up and patted myself to see how badly I was hurt. I stood up, spit the dirt out of my mouth and started walking toward the Kubota. I stopped to catch my breath and called Clint. I had just started telling him what had happened and was listening to him YELL at me for getting hurt by being stupid  when….RAWWWRRRRRRRRR!!! Jurassic Park again. I turned, phone still to my ear and HERE SHE CAME AGAIN, roaring and snorting. I started running and screaming, feeling her hot breath and slobber on the backs of my bare legs. I made it to the Kubota, climbed in and by this time I was crying in great, big gulps and screams. I put the phone back up to my head and Clint was SCREAMING my name, telling his coworkers he had to go tend to his injured, cow stomped wife. I finally got his attention and told him I was basically ok, but the calf was even closer to the creek.

  “I don’t CARE about a dead CALF… I CARE about a hurt WIFE… go HOME!” 

  I didn’t go home. My friend Carolyn had called just as I was heading out to find 45 that sunny day. “Be careful.” she said. “Don’t get close to the calf.” she warned. The last thing she said? “I’m gonna put my shoes on and be ready when that mama gets you.” So when I called her, the first thing she said was not “hello!” but “how bad did she get you? I’m headed over.” So we sat on the Kubota for a couple of hours, watching the calf narrowly miss falling into the water every 10 minutes and marvel at my growing bruises. They were spectacular and impressive. They also hurt and I was starting to feel like I’d been hit by a truck.

  When Clint came home, I rode out there with him. I did NOT get off the Kubota, I pretended to be Merlin Perkins from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom watching safely from the helicopter while hapless Jim wrestled with a water buffalo. Clint dodged her, ran and got behind trees, hit her across the face with sticks and finally got her to take her baby AWAY from the deep water hole.

  I tell you THAT to tell you THIS.

 Clint asked me this morning to go check Big Holstein. She was in labor last night. It’s not her first calf, she’s had several and she’s big and broad hipped and tall. She never has trouble, but you never know.

  So in the cold January drizzle, I headed out on my Kubota to find Big Holstein. She is gentle and usually not any trouble, but all that flies out the window when there’s a calf involved. I found her, in front of the chicken houses by a little grove of cedar trees. She calved there last year and a lot of times, they favor the same spot. I made my MAAAAAAA sound to trick her into looking toward her calf. It makes them think the calf is bawling, although Clint says he can’t figure out how I fool them as my MAAAAAA sound really sounds like someone is throttling a cat. She looked……toward the creek.

  Here’s the deal: that grove of cedar trees is 20 feet from the edge of the small cliff over a flooded creek. She had bedded that beautiful, tiny calf on the EDGE. On the EDGE. Above the WATER, flowing furiously due to our massive rains.  I called Clint.

  I told him where she had the calf bedded down. He said “of course she did.” I said “I’ll come back and check later to see if she moved it.” “no, just leave it alone. You’ll be tempted to “help” and I don’t want you gettin’ hurt.”

  So I told Big Holstein she better have birthed that calf with FLIPPERS and taught it to swim, cause it was on it’s own. Maggie and I headed home.  

  So…can you see why I think there’s a vast conspiracy? They want me to head down that bank, in my slick boots and middle age to try to rescue a calf. They wanna make it look like an accident. Well, I’m on to them. They’re just made that we put T-Bone (a beautiful bull calf) up to feed and butcher. Even if we are eating hamburgers, I announce “we are eating T-BONE!!” and he is so tender and so good.

  They’re trying to take me out before I turn another one of them into Sunday-after-church-roast-and-potatoes.

   I’ve already got my next victim picked out. He’s a beautiful bull calf. His name? Sir Loin