It was a depressing week. We were only two weeks into the calving season, and the 10 day forecast showed snow, rain, and wind everyday nonstop. Not the best weather for new calves.
We made it through the worst of the ten days...we thought. We were checking cows every two - three hours. Our days and nights were running together with little sleep in between.
Finally the forecast showed a morning of rain or snow showers and in the afternoon the sun was going to shine.
We were looking forward to the sun like it was Christmas!
We should have been forewarned. The day before this lovely sunshine was going to grace us, 8 of our cows had calves. We never had 8 in a 24 hour period!
The next morning the snow showers turned into a snow storm and dumped 3 inches of very wet heavy snow on all our babies. The sun never found its way through the clouds! The calves had no place dry to lay.
A day and a half later we found the first calf struggling to breathe. We took it into the barn put it in the warming box and doctored it up. A couple hours later it died.
We found the second calf that afternoon, it seemed to still be alert but it was definitely having breathing difficulties.We loaded her onto the side-by- side and headed for the barn, the mother cow bellering accusations behind us. We quickly got the calf into the warming box, got medicine and warm liquids into her. We kept her in the barn all night, working with her every time we went out to check for new calves. By morning she seemed to be doing better but her breathing was still ragged and rough sounding.
We were hoping the sun would come out by the time we were done feeding. The calf needed some sun as bad as she needed her mother. We loaded her onto the side by side and took her back up on the hill. We soon found her mother and unloaded the calf. Then we drive a short distance away to watch them bond together.
It was cold, and muddy. Rob and I were still a little depressed by the happenings of the past 24 hours. The cow and calf seemed to be doing well, we wanted to be sure she was nursing before we headed back to the house.
Our of the corner of my eye I saw two calves start running across the pasture. They looked like they were racing, as they passed another calf who was nursing, he stopped to look, and then started running after them, Along the way they picked up two more calves.
Then I heard some commotion from the direction they had just come from. Two mothers were trotting toward this group of calves, who were by now running wide open toward the end of the field. Their tails straight up.
The mothers were definitely agitated, they were also picking up speed and mooing threatening adjectives. As they passed the cow whose calf had been nursing, she decided she needed to join in the chase toward the renegade calves.
As I was sitting there chuckling at this scene, Rob also lost interest in the sick calf and her mother. By now the calves were almost at the end of the pasture still running full tilt. They made a wide U turn never losing speed and headed right back the way they had come, full speed ahead!
The mothers were still running toward the calves, mooing threateningly with udders swinging, as the calves passed them heading in the opposite direction. The mothers stopped and turned to watch the wayward calves. You could almost see them shrug their shoulders and say, " What's the use?
The calves soon lost interest in whatever they were running from and wandered back to their mothers.
Rob and I continued to laugh over this scenario. It was just what we needed. It helped to blow away the dark cloud that seemed to hang over us. God was telling us no matter how depressing the weather his creatures could still enjoy it and we could too if we just took time to look for the rainbow!
"After every storm there is a rainbow, no matter how long it takes to show up."
