by Jan Fielden
I had to make a run to the grocery store last Friday and as I went down the road from the ranch, I saw a cow lying in the pasture by the County Road. This cow was in the process of having a baby. For those of you that may have never seen a cow have a baby, it is a miracle in the making. I drove on to the store and it, of course, was an adventure since we are in all this “social distancing”, limits on paper goods, etc. When I came home from the store, the cow was still in the pasture, still in labor. I could see the baby’s face and since I did not know how long the face was showing, I did not think a lot about it. However, it went on for the next hour and a half. I received a call from a neighbor informing me the calf was dead. The neighbor evidently had gone down the road and could see the calf. About that time, The Colonel came in the house and I told him about it. We went down to where the action was taking place and the neighbor was right. The calf was dead but had not been totally expelled from its’ momma’s body.
The Colonel hooked up the “come-a-long” in order to pull the calf the rest of the way out only there were all kinds of problems. It seems the calf was twisted, and it was almost impossible to get it out. Finally, the calf came and we discovered the thing that was keeping it from being born was its’ shoulder, feet, and head were all trying to force their way out. We lost the calf, but we still have the momma who, we discovered was a little too young to have a calf. The Red Oak Ranch has a lot of good times, but we also have some sad times.
