A Goat Named Weedeater

 Some friends and I were recently discussing the subject of goats and I was reminded of this story of when Toby was still in elementary school-so it's been a while.:-)

Leslie and his dad decided we were going to BBQ a goat. So they go get one.

Leslie pulls out into the lot beside the house and lets it out. Anyone with
cows knows that you don't let an animal out until it can get used to it's
surroundings or if other animals are there, let them have a chance to get
used to it. Otherwise, you have total chaos on your hands.

It happens that at that time we had a brown jersey cow and calf, a holstein
cow and calf and a gurnsey cow and calf in the lot. You know , they aren't
the fastest moving cows around. But Leslie lets that goat out and he
immediately spies those cows and takes off towards them. In all fairness I
figure he was just curious and wanted to be friends but these cows had never seen a goat before. They take off running...not to the back of the place but forward. Forward is a fence. That didn't deter them one whit. Over the fence they went all the while those little legs pumping faster than I thought they could go. The movement reminded me of the Keystone Cops. The fence is down and the cows are out and there goes the goat--right behind them.

Leslie gets on the four wheeler and Toby and I get on the three-wheeler and we take off across the road to try and bring them all back. To get into that pasture you have to go down the little dirt road we call Lover's Lane for a bit and turn in at a gap. This gap is high-tech--consists of a post and
barbed wire with a loop at both ends of the wooden post to tie it to another
post. Leslie lets it down and takes off after the goat. Toby and I head in
the opposite direction looking for the cows and calves. In the meantime,
it's getting dark. Our three-wheeler has no lights. Leslie gets the goat,
puts a rope on him and leads him back home. Thinking we have returned to the house, he closes the gap. Because of the different pastures and groups of trees he can't tell that we are still in there searching for the cows.

Toby and I decide that since the cows are inside a fence in the pasture that
they'll be okay until tomorrow. We head back towards the house. It's already gotten dark and we can barely see. We go blaring down the path towards the gap and proceed--or try to proceed-through. The force of the three-wheeler on that barbed wire causes the post to pop up from its mooring and the post itself pops me on the arm. The wire literally wraps itself around the front of the three-wheeler. Miraculously, Toby hasn't a scratch on him. I-however-have barbed wire catching the sundress I'm wearing and binding me to the material of the seat. The spot on my arm that the post hit is swelling up ..it actually looks to me like a bone is trying to come through.

I tell Toby to go tell Daddy that I might have a broken arm and can't get
off the three-wheeler because the barbed wire has me caught. Toby gets off and runs to the house. I sit there and wait...and wait...and wait. Finally,
I decide I'd better find a way off the thing. I gingerly pick the material
of my dress from the wire and manage to free myself. I walk to the house.
Leslie is in the bathroom washing his hands. He says he was just about to
leave to come get me....MEN!

Leslie takes me to the hospital and they x-ray my arm. I cannot move it as
they sit me beside the machine and have me lift the arm with the other and
place it for x-raying. Takes them a bit, all the while I can't move my arm.
When they get the film developed they come back in there and tell me that
it's not a break. Miraculously, I am then able to move the arm! I think
there's a lot to be said for the power of suggestion...

That goat had been on the place all of 15 minutes and caused me to have a
wreck and have to go to the hospital with a possible broken arm...we named him Weedeater but he wasn't around long enough to earn that name or to get used to being called that...

There hasn't been a goat on the place since.

Tonight Some of the Joy of Farm Life Temporarily Went Missing

Last night the time changed. Ordinarily, I'd be happy about that. Being it's Spring that means that we moved our clocks forward to allow for longer daylight hours. We could've used even longer daylight tonight. The outcome wouldn't have been any different but it would have eased matters a bit.

I'd been sick most of the day--not that horrible, throwing up kind of sick but the almost-as-bad, just plain slightly-nauseous kind. With a headache thrown in for good measure, the day just wasn't along the lines of one you'd tend to be thankful for. While I missed church again and listened to the preaching on the radio, I should have been more thankful for my day thus far--because it was gonna get worse!

The sun was shining and the wind had died down some from the day before but being under the weather, I just elected to stay inside. I was winding down my day at almost 11:30, playing on the computer when Leslie comes in from checking on a cow across the road and says, "Come with me. The calf is turned backwards and we're gonna have to pull it." Well, that's never a pleasant experience, let alone when the calf is breech.

Leslie gets a peanut butter jar with lid and puts warm soapy water in it. This was for washing his hands before attempting to go up into the cow to pull the calf. Later, I mentally commended him on his forethought. But I guess when you've had cows as long as we have you tend to know these things without having to think them through.
He goes outside and grabs a rope and a small cable, I grab the flashlight and we head off down the road where he's left the tractor right on the other side of the fence. Leaving the truck pulled over to the side of Lover's Lane, we cross the fence, get on and drive off to find the cow. She's laying down and I can see the calf's tail. His hind end is barely sticking through. Leslie's plan was to push the calf back in there and try to turn it but it was already too far down..it wasn't going back the other way.

I have to hand it to my husband--he sure gave it the old college try! He took the lariat and, tying one end to the tractor, gently placed the other over her head so she'd not get up and run off. He had shed his flannel shirt and was down on the ground behind the cow-up to his elbows inside the cow trying his best to turn that calf. Unfortunately, there's simply nothing to grab hold off to get any leverage. If only he'd been able to get hold of one leg, he'd have stood a good chance. Exhausted from an hour and a half of trying to pull the calf, he ties the cable around the calf's tail and tries with all his might-along with my help-to pull it...no go.

Finally, when most people would have just given up, he goes back to the truck and gets the come-along. Hooking one end to the tractor and placing the cable that's already attached to the tail on the hook of the come-along, he starts gently working it. Gradually he removes the slack and the pressure is on! The calf starts coming towards us while at the same time the poor cow is being put through the wringer. Who knew a calf's tail could withstand so much pulling and tugging?  Finally, we see a bit of progress in that the calf slips out just a smidgen more...when Leslie sees that happens he starts working that winch even more. The calf plops to the ground and you can tell the poor cow has about had it.

The calf isn't moving. Sometimes that happens and you can work the calf and clean it's nostrils and it'll perk up....I wiped it's nose out and Leslie and I both moved the calf around-trying our best to get a movement out of it. Unfortunately, the calf was beyond saving. It had apparently just had too much pressure on it or else it had suffocated. It was a huge Black Angus bull calf.

We unhooked the calf and removed the rope from the cow's neck. She got up, stumbled a few steps and laid down a few feet away. I'm sure that by now she's gone over to check on her baby. I've seen them stay with a dead calf for two or three days. We may have to move it tomorrow if nothing else has gotten it. There are wild hogs, coyotes and buzzards to name three. I just hope that when we go over there we don't have TWO somethings to have to drag off. That cow had been through so much ...they're tough. But will she be tough enough to rebound? At the moment, I'm just not too happy with farm life...

There's That Special Day, Again--Valentine's!

LOL! I can't believe this! Last Valentine's Day-if you will remember(and if you don't the story is on this blog somewhere)-the day went from bad to worse and we wound up not carrying out our Valentine Day's plan but still spent the entire day together.

This morning we missed church-it's been my experience that any day you skip church you're not gonna have a terrific day. Something is bound to go wrong. No, it's not God getting petty revenge..it's simply that you're not 'set' for the day. When you don't start a Sunday off right you might as well expect some tribulations-small though they may be.

The day started off pretty with the sun shining as if it meant to warm the world in short order. I heard people had been out in their short sleeves but seeing as I didn't step outside until I was forced to, I wouldn't know. We'd had snow two days before which didn't waste any time the next morning in melting. LA (Lower Arkansas) isn't used to much snow so it was a surprise to find the weather doing an about-face and spitting out snow. I say spitting because that's about how it was. We had just decided we'd better go put the hay out when it clouded up. Before I could get outside Leslie calls me (we use our cell phones like walkie-talkies) from outside and tells me to hurry up because it's trying to rain. Yeah, right..I saw the sun shining earlier...didn't look like it was gonna do much...

Before I could get my insulated coveralls and boots on it started a light rain. By the time Leslie took off on the tractor and I pulled the trailer down the drive, it had started becoming a slushy rain. It was apparent that it was NOT going to be a nice outing weatherwise and that we'd have to feed in some pretty uncomfortable conditions. I didn't know how true that was...

The funny thing is, we'd always left the tractor keys in the tractors. To tell the setup in this story would take too long..suffice to say, the tractors were left elsewhere and not behind locked gates so we'd taken the keys out two days before when we'd finished feeding. Well, we finished up feeding across the road and Leslie drove that tractor back to the house  to park it while I'd pulled down Lover's Lane and parked in front of our drive to wait on him. It's starting to rain again. We get about two miles down the road and he remembers the key-it's in a different truck. I turn in at the Country Club to turn around (don't tell anybody--I don't think they like you even turning around in their driveway if you don't have a membership). I drive back to the house and park along the road to wait on Leslie to go get the tractor key. Once he's back in the truck we are on our way across town to feed.

We have hay still in a pasture because it started raining before we could move it and it seemed to never stop. We kept waiting for the ground to dry up so we could haul it out but nature seemed to be saying, "Plan better next year" and "Get an earlier start next year, Chump!". It started raining in late June and hasn't stopped long enough for the ground to become anywhere near dry enough to handle trucks, trailers and tractors without at least two out of the three getting stuck.

We get over there and are nearly to his tractor when I have this sudden thought that I voiced.."Leslie, did you get BOTH keys?!?" 

Since we are already nearly there, I stop at the intersection and let him out to walk up and get his tractor. He decides he'll just use his alone even though it's heavier and it's gonna be hard to get through that trail in the woods without burying himself in the soft mud. As I drive on down the road, headed for the opening into the woods that's on a different road it dawns on me-he can't get his tractor down the trail because MY tractor is sitting smack dab in the middle of the trail-with no key!

He pulls up and parks his tractor and comes back to the truck--having realized the same thing. He gets in, I turn the key and it grinds to a slow halt. Nothing....

After working on it awhile and trying to jump start it with the tractor he decides to change out the batteries with the one in my tractor. We walk back down the road a short ways and take that battery out and Leslie hauls it back to the truck..that's the ticket. So, here we are about an hour later and haven't fed a single cow...

We head on to the Wildcat Road to the pasture over there and feed. That tractor is a Deutz just like the keyless one we just left. We'll feed there and grab that key and head back. Well, the Deutz won't start without jump-starting it (I have this process down to a fine art). Once we get it started I take off for the back pasture..it's a little more than a fourth of a mile back. The cows are already up front waiting on us so they turn and follow the tractor. The snow is coming down hard from the north at a blowing pace..and yes, I'm headed north. The speed of the tractor is causing the snow to hit me in the face and there's no getting away from it. The tears are streaming and the mascara is running, I'm pretty sure. Mud's flying up at an alarming speed but I'm figuring the mud is preferable to the wet snow stinging me in the face.I make it back and open the far gate. Luckily the week before I'd hauled down about 25 bales so I just set out about six of those as fast as I could and headed back. By the time I reach the road, Leslie has turned the truck around and is waiting for me. I park the tractor, grab the key, close and lock the gate and practically fly into the truck to escape the snow. By that time my face is frozen along with other unmentionable parts of me. The insulated coveralls are not as insulatable (yes, that's a word) as one might thing...I think I even have blown snow inside my gum boots!

We head BACK across town to where the tractors are and in short order we are loading hay. The truck and trailer are parked in the road , I'm going through the woods on my tractor and getting the hay I'd stacked along the tree opening in the pasture. The trail in the woods has been traveled over and over so you can imagine the shape the track is in. There's one spot where the tires go down into a deep rut and if I'm not careful I'll lose the bale of hay--that's happened a couple of times already. The mud is unbelievable and what should have been a simple task turned into a frustrating ordeal. I'd bring the hay through on my tractor and Leslie would take it from me onto his with the front end loader and load onto the trailer. All the while I'm fighting the ruts with tires that appear to have minds of their own and keep fighting me ..the ruts have some kind of magnetic pull because no matter how much I turn the wheel or press on the brake they insist on falling right into that rut. I lost one bale but I was determined it wasn't going to happen again. I forged a new trail by straddling the ruts and driving over trees.:-)

Once the trailer was loaded Leslie takes off down the road with two bales of hay so he can stop and feed the few old cows in one spot. Then he heads on down to where I'm parked so he can put out hay for the heifers. Once that's done he parks the tractor, closes and locks the gate and comes to the truck. We take off for home and it is now dark enough that lights are needed. We started off right after lunch...on the way home we discussed the possibility of selling out...:-)

Here we are cold, wet, hungry and aggravated but feeling blessed that nothing else happened. I'm always thankful for small favors. And I always say it could be worse. We could have had flats, we could have not been able to get the truck started which would have meant no way home--we're clear across town and out in the country and there's no way we could walk that far even if we'd had the stamina--which we didn't.

Here it is nearly 6:30 p.m. on Valentine's Day and we are just getting into the house and stripping down out of  the wet, muddy and cold clothing. Plans? First, warm clothes..second, something warm to drink..and third? I'm NOT leaving this house!

Miracle

Friday we went over to put out some hay for the cows. We put out a few bales for the heifers in the front pasture then forked a bale and headed for the back pasture where we have a few of the older cows.

As we drove through the gap Leslie noticed that one of the cows standing with the others near the pond had already had her calf but it was nowhere to be seen. At the same time there was another cow across the pasture near the corral that had a new calf standing beside her.
I'm driving the tractor and Leslie is sitting on the hood right in front of me. He decides he wants to go check on the new calf with the mom and at the same time look for the missing calf.

I've always had a problem with having other people be my eyes and this was no exception. I don't like asking people to watch the traffic for me at stop signs or check to see if a railroad track is clear of trains-driving a tractor and allowing someone else to watch where I'm going for me amounted to the same thing. I protested about driving the tractor through the tall grass--we might run over the new baby laying about. Leslie assures me he'll watch. I can't see through him or around him so haven't much choice but to trust that he'll watch for me. As we head towards the new mom and her calf on the other side we're glancing around looking for signs of the lone calf.

Leslie is looking towards the cow and calf by the corral. I'm looking on the ground on both sides of me--unfortunately, I can't see right in front of the tractor. All of a sudden, the tractor rares off the ground and plops back down--somewhat similar to running over a speed bump. Before it can register with me what's happened the back tire hits the same object and the most heartbreaking sound reaches my ears--it's an agonizing calf bawl!

I glanced back just in time to see the large right tire come off the calf..the calf remains in place, curled up on the ground. I just knew I'd killed it outright. I can't explain how devastated I felt! Sure, we'd lost calves before but THIS was MY fault!! Might as well have taken a gun and shot a puppy between the eyes--I couldn't have felt any guiltier. I will leave off telling about my crying jag lest you start thinking I'm some sort of crybaby softie....just keep in mind the movie "Speed" when Sandra Bullock thought she'd run over a baby in a baby carriage and you'll know just how I was feeling.

Leslie jumps off the hood and runs around to the calf, picks it up, stands it on the ground and it shakily runs halfway towards its mom and stops. The mom has heard the cry and runs down from the pond and stops a few feet away to check out what's happening. Leslie forces the calf to walk the rest of the way over to its mom. They both are standing by a tub but the calf doesn't lay back down. You can tell that it's hurting. How I kept from killing it outright from that heavy tractor is beyond me.

I continue to put out hay and and looking at the calf each time I come through the gap..it's still standing, all bowed up. Not being able to do a thing for it, we head home. On the way, I say a silent prayer and ask God to help it. It's not just people that sometime deserve to be helped...

The next morning, Saturday, we had a funeral to attend. It's a rainy, dreary day and just too wet to bother going over there. I tell Leslie that even if I hadn't killed it outright, the rain would probably cause it to catch pneumonia since it's injured and it'd die, anyway. I thought about the poor little thing off and on all day.

The next afternoon-Sunday-we go over and while putting out hay I look for it...can't see it anywhere. Ordinarily, I'd say it would be laying dead somewhere close to where we'd left it. Then too, there was always the possibility that it went off and died or that the coyotes had gotten it.

Monday Aaron's girlfriend was here so I took advantage of that and let her go with Leslie and Aaron to put out hay and feed while I remained at home to get a little cleaning done--you could actually write your name in the dust on the furniture. Other than an occasional hit-n-miss, I'd not cleaned house since before Thanksgiving so it was WELL past time I put in a little extra effort.

They come in that afternoon and Leslie says," Momma, you won't BELIEVE it! That calf is alive! Not only is it alive but it was running around playing with the other calves. It went up to another cow and she butted it away. I don't know HOW you kept from just crushing it dead , but it's doing okay."

Well, as I tell Aaron, if it was anyone else, I'd say that Leslie made up that story to make me feel better---but nah! He wouldn't bother to try and spare my feelings.:-) He did say that with all this rain the ground is so saturated that I probably just pushed the calf into the ground rather than breaking bones or crushing the insides. But what I remember was that tractor going up into the air twice and that calf bawling ...there's no conceivable way that it didn't do SOME damage!

I'll just leave it at that and say that sometimes God will answer prayers concerning things that others might not even dream of praying about. Most would have just shrugged it off as another one of those "Those things will happen" instances and write the calf off. But it seemed so sad that the little thing had survived birth just the day before only to have Life snuffed out by being run over. So a prayer seemed the next step to take. God has his reasons for all the things he does--or doesn't do. I wonder if that calf was that important or if he saved it just for my sake. Perhaps I'll never know. But I do know that the chances of a one-day old calf surviving being run over by a moving tractor with BOTH tires going over it are pretty slim to none. God DOES work in mysterious ways--therefore I think I'll call this little heifer "Miracle".

Five days after the 'accident'