Flattened by a Bovine

I got squashed by a cow last night. Pretty badly, actually. She was reaching for feed and just happened to slam her rib cage into me, knocking me into a metal stall divider…three times. It didn’t exactly hurt and I went on milking for a couple of minutes, but then everything started to just feel "wrong" somehow. I had to go sit on a bale of straw for a while because I felt very faint. I just couldn’t get feeling right, so I left the rest of milking to the others and came over to the house where I could sit down if I needed to. I had major abdominal surgery a long time ago and sometimes getting hit real hard messes me up more than you would expect. I felt pretty crummy all evening and went to bed way early.

Of course this morning somebody still had to make the early morning barn check as 144 STILL hasn’t had her calf. I was the first one up so I went out. I hobbled like a little old lady, baby steps all the way. Still no calf so I hobbled back. It took a while.

I dreaded milking. I was really afraid of getting hurt again or more or whatever. However, it has to be done and when the kids are in school there is nobody but the boss and me to do it. At first it was as bad as the early walk over; I could barely move. Plugging the milkers into the overhead pipeline was almost more than I could handle. However, there is nothing like exercise to stretch damaged muscles and joints. I am happy to report that chores are done for the morning and I feel pretty good. Or at least not too bad. It was a reminder though, that no matter how tame and sweet milk cows might be, they weigh around three quarters of a ton. They are very single minded, and they don’t really give a darn if they flatten a mere human who gets in the way of their luncheon.

cows
agriculture