Glen says that we only have about twenty cows left to calve out. The day this is all over can't happen soon enough for him - too bad that some will probably straggle on into the summer.
This spring has not been a good go. As of yesterday we are up to six sets of twins, a crazy twist of fate that Glen has decided to blame on his least favorite bull. Actually, I don't think that herd sires have much control over multiple births but he seems to need a scapegoat so Freddy is taking the fall. I don't know how he comes to this conclusion as Freddy has been with us three years now and this curse of twins has only shown up in 2008. It would be interesting if anyone out there had a more scientific hypothesis on what's going on here. Our closest neighbor with cattle is way above his average in the twin department as well. It's just weird.
Obviously, we do not consider twins as a blessing. Oh sure, if they're born easy, and Mom likes them both fine, and she has enough milk for them both, you end up with a double calf crop in the fall. The odds of all these things happening are 50 - 50 at best. Out of six sets (twelve calves) we have seven left: three live sets on their own mothers, two sets dead at birth, and one confused first time mother who decided to claim the dead one and ignored the other one. For reasons we don't even try to fathom, another cow, who already had her own two week old calf, decided that she would take this emotional orphan on. Glen wasn't there when this happened and it took him some time to piece together where this extra baby must have come from.
This past few days he has spent trying to keep another few babies from traveling on to the Promised Land. Some are just born with a low desire to live; I don't know how else to describe it. They look healthy enough but the will to get up and look for nourishment just doesn't seem to be present. It's a labor-intensive proposition, but if a farmer sticks with them through that first week, going out and tying up the mother so that she stands still, and then propping up the calf and guiding the teat into his mouth so that he sucks .... to someone who has never done this, it might look cute, and nurturing - but just try it when it's cold, and dark, and the cow doesn't want you anywhere close, and the bending over nearly kills your back muscles. It's hard work; sometimes it's worth it, and sometimes they die no matter how hard you try.
We did get eight inches of wet snow two weeks ago which was very nice for the water situation around here. The day before the storm rolled in Glen and I spent all the daylight hours trying to get all the newest cow/calf pairs moved back into the barn where they would be better protected. We won with the ones that we knew about but we lost at least one the night of the storm - just too cold and wet.
With almost all the snow gone now farmers are starting to stir around. The fields are too wet, but tractors and equipment are being hauled out to get ready for seeding. We'll be planting some grains this spring but most of our land is pasture now. Glen and our neighbor are outside shooting the breeze at the moment and I can hear them speculating on whether the grain prices will stay high for very long, and when the cattle producers can count on beef prices going back up again. I wonder if things will go back to normal when the powers that be finally realize that using food crops to make bio-fuels is one of the most un-environmentally friendly things that they could think of to do. When it takes almost a gallon of fuel to make a gallon of fuel, simple math should be enough to show them that it just isn't going to work.
I guess I should get my implements out too. The yard needs cleaning up, and the sunshine feels lovely on my skin - time to get to work.
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