Pearl And Earl

The same question comes up a lot, ‘how do you have so many stories?’ The answer is not a simple one since there are as many different answers as there are stories. Some come from an experience of the day such as the various tours I am lucky to go on. Others come from classes I take or groups I am involved in. As the seasons change, stories come flying(pun intended) at me in the form of wild weather, pollen counts, rain gauges and the like. Some ideas come from the books or articles that I am reading, proof-reading or listening to. I even go back through my archives of stories to remind myself of a treasure that I can pass along or a memory I wanted to re-share.

I have been known to ask the same question about how to start a story to blog about. Yesterday as we loaded the hay and dogs on the Gator for our daily feeding of the main herd, I turned toward Mike and patted my camera pocket to make sure I was ready for inspiration then stated, “I hope I get an idea for tomorrow’s post.” Within a couple of minutes, I had my story…

Out of the main herd, we are monitoring a couple of cows that are close to calving. As we headed into the large pasture for feeding, Mike noticed a cow off by herself under a large fir tree at the northeast corner of the field. She had just delivered the placenta and was busy cleaning up the area (Cows are very clever about cleaning up after delivery of calf and, within an hour or two, also the afterbirth. Keeping the pasture clean helps keep the predators like coyotes from coming in to investigate.) It looked like her calf was sleeping in a small pile at the edge of the fence about 50 yards away. A little further from the pile we saw a newborn calf come scampering up from farther down the field.

At first we thought there may be a set of twins, but another cow came running up from the back of the field, her milk bag was slapping back and forth between her hind legs and she was making those mother-sounds, not loud enough to be a bellow but a low grumbling that is urgent and pleading for a newborn to pay attention.

So now we had what looked like two mamas and one baby with the possibility of two babies if the pile that is not moving is a sleeping newborn and not just a pile of poop over by the fence line (it was hard to tell because of the fence post and a dip in the field, it could have been either.) Or we could have two mamas and two babies or we could have twins with one mama and another in labor (that low grumbling could be labor pains). Quite frankly, the math was beginning to make my head spin.

The first cow that we had spotted and was cleaning up is #92 Pearl. She has had easy births over the years without any issues and the cow that came running is #41 Ruby who is a couple of years younger and due with her second calf.

It all was quickly sorted out when Pearl finished cleaning up the placenta and walked over to the fence by the pile of newborn while the standing calf nuzzled Ruby.

The first thing we did was move Ruby and her newborn (the story for them will be tomorrow) off a little way so that Pearl and her baby will not get confused as to who belongs to who. We fed a little hay to Ruby who was starving, then fed the rest of the main herd around the corner in the main field before going back to Pearl.

Pearl’s calf had found a depression that was just the right size along the fence line, but must have rolled over as he was resting and ended up on the opposite side of the barb wire fence from his mother. Mike had to open a gate and walk the fenceline to the resting calf and rouse him from a very deep sleep in order to find a spot in the fence where he could lift the wires and shoo the baby back into the filed where Pearl was now eating hay. Newborns are groggy when they wake up and takes them a few minutes to orient themselves (sometimes they take off running if spooked), but Mike was able to get the critter up and through the fence so Pearl could take over to keep the baby calm.

Welcome to the farm bull calf SAF Earl, weighing in at 80 lbs. and was sired by KC Night Prowler. Born 3/6/2020. He was very tired from all the getting up and moving business so he was back to sleeping peacefully as his mama ate breakfast.

Thank you so much for supporting our stories. We appreciate every reader we have and love it when you spread the word about SchmidlinAngusFarms, fill out the FOLLOW information so you get each story right to your email each day and/or leave comments about the stories. I would also like to take a moment to thank those who click on the icon to do shopping with the affiliate, your clicks give me credit for directing people to their site (clicking on the affiliate icon does not make you purchase, only gets you the their site) and sometimes I get a small commission from your purchases if you do shop, without a cost to you! As always, Prime and special codes work with the icon and you do not have to purchase any item that I promote. Please consider using my link when you do your cyber shopping. Thank you for your support

I am so pleased to announce that MaryJane Nordgren has made her new book available to the public! Click here for your copy of Nandria’s War.