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'
