Blessings

Are even more so when completely unexpected. After the glory of yestermorn, we went into the stable to find little Velvet, the downer heifer, with her head caught under a gate. She had been pretty good the night before, not quite able to stand because of milk fever, but not awful either.


She had been eating hay and quite bright eyed. After they got her out from the gate she lay flat on her side, legs in the air, and bloated. Nothing moved but her eyes, and so cold. Not good at all....


I got Alan to rig a pulley system to roll her up on her chest and the boss put the core of a round bale behind her to hold her there. We wrapped her in hay, ears to tail, and gave her grain and hay. 


She did eat, but in my experience once one gets that far down the wrong road they don't very often find their way back.


I was sick. Really, truly sick. I had such hopes for that poor little girl.


Velvet's dam was an old black cow that belonged to Alan. Her joints went bad when she was carrying her last calf and it took constant nursing for weeks to keep her getting up and down and eating and drinking. That kind of job often falls to me because I simply can't stand to give up on an animal. I have a connection to every single one of them somehow, and I cannot rest when something is wrong. It will drive me crazy figuring out how to fix a sick animal and it breaks my heart when we fail.


 I sometimes try past the point of stupid. I tried real hard with old Volemar and managed to get her through to calving. Then her baby, who would be Velvet, presented with a leg back and all twisted up wrong. Liz had to race home from several hours away to help everybody else in the family get the calf born.


Because I had worked so long and hard trying to save the old cow, Alan gave the calf to me. Sadly old Voldemar never got up again and had to be humanely euthanized.


Velvet became such a pet she would walk right up to you in the yard to get her head scratched. We all loved her. To even have her get down calving about killed me...and the  kids too, who are so fond of her. To see her at death's door truly did me in.


Then midday yesterday another cow of mine, Lucky, calved. It was a heifer. This year has sent us a real dearth of heifers and this one is a lively little girl by the Maxwell bull...It cheered me up a bit, but I was still depressed about Velvet. Kind of took the shine off the other two successful birthings.


At evening chore time we had a lot of hiking to get the new mamas and babies to the barn. When we were done I asked the boss, who was putting down grain, how Velvet was doing.


"She's just lying over there," he pointed. I looked at the feed through panel on the pen.


There was a shaggy black head sticking through, as its owner kneeled to gobble grain. I guess she had had enough of feeling sorry for herself and decided to eat Corolla's grain. Velvet was up and taking nourishment.


And downright eagerly too.


Joy


 I could barely contain it. We gave her her little black bull, she fed him and tucked him under a fold of hay. He lay there next to the round bale end with only his head sticking out, looking quite satisfied with himself. She went back to scarfing up grain and looking quite content.


Sometimes miracles do happen and they are surely welcome. I don't know how much longer we will be able to keep dairy farming. Prices are terrible, we are getting old fast. You can't just keep on losing money forever. The kids can't take over...they have to have off farm jobs to survive for themselves. However, as long as I live I will treasure moments like yesterday's when I saw my little Velvet standing up.