Another Epiphany

I am on a roll this week...today while a cow tried with all her 1500 lbs. of might to smear her new born calf into the wall of our barn, I had an epiphany, well of a sort... I remember leaning against the pipe gate watching as Robert valiantly beat the cow back with a hose to get at the calf and drag it to safety...that it must be something catastrophic to cause a mother to harm her defenseless baby like that...but it turned out that her abuse was, if you can believe it, more desirable than the total indifference she is showing now...you see, she had twins...and the second born is her favorite..it is the last one she licked clean and suckled...so in her mind it is THE one...apparently a mothers love does have limits and conditions...just as I suspected all along... So the first born calf, well it is laying in a pile of clean dry straw in the pen next to her, and to put human emotions to the calf, it's watching it's very own mother shower all her love and attention on its brother. When ever it stands up and moves around in its pen, the cow charges the fence and bawls...

Poor little shit, I feel so bad for it...oh, it's not going hungry, Robert is getting the cow in a milking her to feed him, but still, his hair is stiff with birthing fluid dried to it and he seems sad...I know I am projecting human emotion on an animal but still, I think they do have feelings...so I spent an hour sitting in the straw with him, rubbing him with a flannel rag...and talking to him...I'm not sure if it did him any good but it made me feel better and in some small way I think it helped him...touching is fundamental part of all species of animal be we human or otherwise...a newborn calf is quicker on its feet and suckling when stimulated to move by its mothers raspy tongue...a calve that isn't licked will lay for much longer before rising to look for the teat...and have trouble finding it. An affectionate, attentive mother makes all the difference. I know you would agree.

We have had cows, whom after having their calf die during the calving process, will grieve, just like you or I do...they become depressed...and spend a lot of time staring at other cows calves...some even try to steal a calf from another cow.. this year we had a young cow lose a set of twins and being that it was early at the start of calving we did not have a spare calf (from another set of twins) to give her...so she stood at the fence looking into the paddock where the other mothers were with their babies and mooed... it was so sad... and she did that for nearly ten days...she lost weight...and followed Robert around the pen with her eyes...I am not sure what she thought he would do for her...but she never gave up hope...and then today, twenty days after she lost her babies, we finally have a baby to give her....we wondered if it was too long...but we brought her into the barn and put her in the pen with the calf I mentioned at the beginning of this post...the one whose mother didn't want him and a miracle took place right before our eyes....she moved towards it...sniffed it... it mooed and she mooed back, licked its face and that was that...like it was meant to be...so, everybody is happy...the cow that birthed two but only wanted one...the one that wanted one so desperately, and the calf that needed a loving mother..they all got what they wanted...and it was a beautiful thing to see....that one mothers heart could be so small as to not have enough love for two children and another mothers love so large that she just wants someone to share it with...and a calf that had no choice in the life altering decision played out in the barn this cold afternoon.  

So just when I am at my lowest and question the reason I continue to do what I do...something like this comes along and reminds me...life, at it's most basic element...is a force to be reckoned with.