by Julie Carter
Not
enough credit is given to the little woman who pulls her half of the load
during calving season. It doesn’t always get done quite as punchy as by the
head cowboy, but by golly, it gets done. Recently a tale related to me brought
that point home.
The
weather had been blessing the ranch with lots of moisture in combinations of
rain and then piles of snow followed by enough warmth in the day to make mud
the challenge. The cowgirl was making her check through the expecting heifers
and saw one in the snowy bottom of the pasture with the tell-tale tail wringing
going on. Knowing she was in labor, she eased the first-time momma-to-be up to
the prepared straw beds under the protection of the trees. The heifer was
kicking at her belly and quite agitated, so she knew labor was in full swing.
Standing
back where she could watch, she waited. The heifer bedded down and labor
progressed. Soon one hoof was out but after much more work on the heifer’s
part, nothing more happened. Too far to walk her to the pens, the cowgirl knew
she was going to have to help, making do with what she had.
She
pulled off her shirt, used the sleeve to cinch down on the exposed foot of the
calf. Soon with two feet out and working them back and forth, she “walked” the
calf out of the womb. All this while she was laying, sitting and slipping
around in the mud that was beneath the straw.
With
a live baby calf in her lap, her heart was happy. Standing up she realized the
shirt was not wearable, and while it was a nice day, standing in 45 degree
temps in her bra wasn’t quite the sunbathing experience she had in mind. Just
another matter-a-fact day for the season.
In
much a similar situation, I once found myself in corrals that were knee-deep in
mud covered by a deceivingly benign-looking white blanket of snow. The
underlying mush would suck off your boots and hindered any kind of movement
other than a determined trudge.
I was
on heifer-calving duty while the head cowboy was somewhere else. The weather
dictated frequent checks to make sure some new, wet, steaming baby calf wasn’t
born in a mud hole and chilled down before he ever got a chance at life.
Heifers
by their very youth and nature are stupid, skittish and determined to be
contrary. I cut laboring heifers out of the “OB” corral and penned them in warm
stalls as they neared the birthing moment. I was in packer boots, every warm
piece of clothing I owned, and looked like the Michelin man in a dance
competition. Moving fast to cut off a heifer as she tried to cut back was not a
pretty sight.
In
all this, there was one heifer on the very far end of the corrals, a long
alleyway from the barn, that decided to lay down and have her calf in the mud
and snow in spite of my efforts. By the time I got to her, she was well into
the business of pushing him out into a puddle of ice-cold mush.
She
got up the minute she saw me and came at me with definite intent to harm. I
deftly jumped (OK, that may be an exaggeration) behind the gate I had just come
through. I let her run through the gate opening, preferable to running over the
top of me. I quickly shut the gate behind her for safekeeping while I rescued
the slimy newborn that was blinking and sputtering trying to get his first
breaths.
The
calf weighed more than he should have for a first-calf and was long, wet and
slippery. I lifted him up by his front end, hugging his back to me, my grip
tight around his body just behind his front legs. His back legs still touched
the ground and I knew all I could do was walk backwards and drag him up the
alley to the barn.
In no
particular order, I tugged and trudged and grunted and pulled. About 10 feet
from the barn door, I went down. My foot had pulled out of my boot and my sock
was fast soaking up freezing wet corral muck. I was sitting on my frozen
backside with a slimy calf in my lap, trying to figure out how to get out from
underneath him, get my boot and start over.
As
perfect as timing could be, it was then the head cowboy came around the corner
of the barn.
He first grinned and then with decidedly poor judgment, he
laughed. He rescued the calf off my lap while asking, “Was this all you got
done today?” It was probably a week after the snow was gone before things
thawed out at the ranch house.
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