We had a calf born just after Christmas last year.  Kent really likes to castrate his bull calves on the 2nd or 3rd day after birth before they get too big for us Mom and Pop farmers to handle.  It never really happens that way, though, and we usually have a big ape of a bull calf before we get to castrate it. Still, hope springs eternal in the small farmer's heart, so we began to try in any way possible to sneak up on that calf to castrate it.  We tried for weeks.  We tried in the day; we tried at night.  

We were convinced it was a bull calf.  It's momma is particularly skittish about her babies, and she wasn't having any part of us getting close to either her or the calf.  Joel, however, got close enough one day that he said, "It's a bull calf!"  And Natalie got close enough one day to say, "I am pretty sure it's a bull calf."

Day after day we tried to get close to the calf.  One night, Tyler and Kent tried to sneak up in the dark and use the calf-catcher that Tyler brought with him.  Didn't work.  We looked at ways to make a homemade calf scooper upper, but they really were beyond what we felt we could finagle.

Finally, I took to feeding hay and calling in the cows.  Kent though the momma would be less intimidated by me.  She was really resistant to coming into the barnyard to eat at all, and he was worried because there wasn't any grass left in the field for her.  It took several days, but finally one day after I fed the hay and walked away, she went in to eat.  Progress!  Hope began to sparkle again.  A few mornings later, just after daylight, I fed hay, and she came in to eat.  I snuck around the barn, and ran to shut the gate.  We had her, her calf, and the other 2 year old heifer in the lot!  So, I called Kent (cell phones have their use!), and he called Billy, and the game was on.

Together we maneuvered the two big cows out and kept the calf in.  The guys tackled the calf, and then I went in to help hold one of the front legs.  Kent laid out the knife and the iodine.  Then he reached down and pulled up her top hind leg and we all gasped.  It wasn't a bull calf at all.  We have a cute little heifer.  And, we have another story in the annals of Fernnook Farm.

On the way to the hay rack tonight a funny thing happened.  Well, actually it happened after visiting the hay rack, but, the point is, it happened.  Kent left for a meeting after dinner, and just as he was going out the door, he turned and said, "I need someone to give hay to the cows."  Well, it just so happens that that particular "someone" is me.  So, I went out to give hay to the cows.  It is really muddy right now.  We have had a lot of rain and snow and freezing and thawing going on around here, and that makes for major mud issues...especially in barnyards.

Today is Tuesday.  Tuesday means a lot of folk come over to our house for dinner, and today's meal had most of the usual crowd attending.  So there were hundreds of kids and dozens of adults both in the house and running around in the yard when I went to the hay rack.  I pulled on my trusty boots, not the ones in the picture above, those were from years gone by, but my nice muck-type boots, and headed out with hopes that I wouldn't get stuck in the mud.  And, I didn't get stuck, but something funny did happen.  It happened because I am so short and the mud is so deep.  I got the hay out of the barn, walked fairly well toward the rack, and then just as I reached it, I sunk in deep.  The top of the rack was over my head, so I had to push and shove and heave to get the hay up and in.  In the process, a load of hay went down my front on both the outside and inside of my shirt.  It was in all the wrong places and immediately began to itch like mad.

I had to go back into the barn to turn off the light, and before turning it out, I had the brilliant idea to take off the offending clothing items and pick out the hay.  Immediate relief!  However, as I was standing there with my top half in the buff, I heard distinct squelching noises come from right outside the barn.  Panic ensued!  I yelled, "Don't come in yet!" and I began to get unbuffed as quickly as possible.  It may have taken me 30 seconds or more to realize that the squelching I was hearing was the poor cows navigating through the deep mud to get to the rack.  What a relief!  My hide was saved, and I can give hay in the future with the knowledge that no one is the wiser to what an old woman looks like who is trying to unhay herself in the barn on a muddy day.