Call A Cowboy

cows

newborn

calves

 The cattle operations here at the Ranch officially begin in the fall with the calving, and there are so many calves in the canyon right now! Above is the neighborhood gathering of mothers and babes that greeted me when I set out for a walk this morning.

But there was one tiny newborn further away who seemed barely alive, and when I say tiny, I mean no bigger than a medium-sized dog. I'd never seen one so small. Its mother was standing nearby with an umbilical cord still dangling from her body, not paying much attention to the calf. I wondered if there was something wrong.

I decided to call head cowboy John McCarty. I figured he already knows I'm a city girl...and anyway, there are no stupid questions, especially if they are well-intentioned. I explained to John what I had seen and said that I was worried about this teeny little creature, no more than a mound of fur on the ground right now.

"Well, that's how it is," said John. "What you saw on the mother was probably the afterbirth, and that calf is very new. Now it needs to rest for a few hours; bein' born is a lot of work. In a little while, it'll stand and start suckling, and then it'll probably need to rest for a few hours again."

"But it was so teeny!" I said stupidly."

Yeah, well, they're pretty small at first. But it'll be okay. And I appreciate your call."

There's the calf an hour or so after I called John. Isn't that sweet?

But the story has an even happier ending. Just a little while ago, Carey and I were driving up the canyon together...stopping as one must with Carey to look at a roadrunner sitting on a fence post, a hawk perched  on a tall tree branch, and anything else winged, wild, or possibly of interest...and there on a hillside was the little calf, suckling! It was flanked by a couple of cousins, basically the new kid in the herd, and it seemed a little wobbly when it walked, but there it was, claiming its place. See?