Just When you Think

That you have seen everything. On Friday nights lately Liz and I have been trying to do the milking alone. Then Becky 'n' the boss can do the running around and stocking up that always seems necessary and we don't get out of the barn at nine o'clock.

Yesterday we were right on track. The boss got down the hay and grained the girls. We let them in, tied up the stanchions, fed the hay, and got everything all as it should be. 

After many stops for last minute discussion of cranberry sauce and what kind of sausage, the boss left. Liz and I were tossing the last chunks of hay to the very last cows, way up in the "new part" (remodeled long before I came here) when there was a resounding crash.

Seems Booth, not a rocket surgeon of a cow, had put one back hoof up on the curb between her stall and the walkway. To reach for a tastier bite you know. Never mind that she had about five chunks right under her nose.

That hoof slipped off the curb and she fell down, with her head still in her stanchion, the base of the stall divider gripping her behind the hip and stifle and her leg out in the aisle.

Utterly, totally and completely stuck.

Liz raced to catch up with the boss, while I scoped the situation. How the heck were we going to get her unstuck?

We didn't want to leave her there any longer than we had to. Liz tied a rope around the affected foot, and pulled, while the boss pulled her by her tail. By the time I ran down the barn to fetch more equipment she popped right out like a cork out of a bottle and hopped to her feet.

Whereupon she began reaching for a tempting bit of hay, just out of reach.