Missing

Last week, against the wishes of certain people, (such as me and the girls) certain other people (who shall remain nameless) let the heifers back out on the hill. We had just gotten them in for Pete's sake, but they were tearing the wires off the tractor and getting in the way of feeding and barn cleaning. He brought them back down nights, but let them out days. Problem was there is a Jersey in the bunch who looks just like a deer (still deer season) and a springer that was ready to pop any day.

Of course the springer had her baby way out by the pond. And of course they couldn't bring her down because it couldn't walk and she was on the prod and yadda-yadda-yadda.

There are times you just keep your mouth shut and hope for the best, which, sadly, was not what we got.

Of course she came down without the baby. And of course when the kids and I went out to get it in off the icy fields it was gone. And of course there were calf tracks leading out of the pasture, through the fence, across two fields and down into a ravine. Of course they tapered off and vanished. Of course there were six sets of coyote tracks following them at a run, all the way from the cow pasture to the ravine. We let the mother out to look for it in case it was hidden, but she just wandered around mooing for it, with no luck at the actual finding part.

Alan kept taking relays of fresh flash lights out and tracking, but he just couldn't pick up the trail again where it disappeared in the ravine. He searched half the night to no avail. We looked for three days before we finally gave up and accepted that the coyotes must have taken it and dragged it away. They have gotten calves before, but I felt especially bad this time, because if only the mother had been left at the barn we could have gotten it in safely. Easily. I knew the boss felt bad too, although he would never say so, because if anybody mentioned it he just walked away.

Then night before last, I heard a little cry when I was walking over to milk. I couldn't tell if it came from the barn or down where the boss was down letting the heifers back into the barnyard from where they had been out on the hill. I thought to myself that it would be so wonderful if the baby had somehow survived and found the heifer herd, but I knew better. The last tracks were so far from the pasture, it had been three days, it is so cold and coyotes are so relentless.

I went in the barn and started setting up with a heavy heart. I just couldn't get the baby off my mind. The animals are our responsibility in this world and I can't help but take it seriously. Even though I had nothing to do with putting the mother back out in the field, I felt a deep guilt over it.

Then came the Christmas miracle. The boss walked in the door with a furry little black critter trotting at his heels. Somehow that baby had escaped the coyotes, found her way back across a good half mile of unfamiliar terrain, and followed the heifers to the barn. A little later she latched right onto a bottle of milk and wagged her tail with what looked to me like sheer joy at being warm and fed. She had never seen a person, but she just loved folks from that first second. She even climbed out of the pen where we put her so she could watch the boss work on the feed cart yesterday. He said she stood there right beside him staring at the motor he was working on, so close he could feel her breath on his hands. I guess he is forgiven, because if she can, she follows him like a dog.

We rarely keep Milking Shorthorn Holstein cross calves as we have a registered herd. However, the first thing the boss said, after I got over the tears of joy that she was found was, "She stays, she earned it."

Her name is Toots.