Poop on my pants. And it is not even mine.

I am sitting here with dried cow poop and mud on my pants and I am too tired to care about changing them.

The last 48 hours have been less than ideal, Reader.

First of all, my car broke down on my way home from school Monday night.  I was able to get it home with David’s help.  Then my husband, who is all that is man, loaded the car onto a trailer and towed it to the mechanic.

Thankfully, his truck was all done at the mechanic just in time to take my car to the mechanic.

Yesterday, I was able to work from home.  I absolutely LOVE working from home.  I love teaching.  I love seeing my animals.  I love not driving.  I find it all to be quite pleasant.

Yesterday, I was teaching and began to notice that it seemed like one calf was mooing quite a bit.  I finished up the school day and started watching the calf.  After awhile, it became apparent that the calf was mooing for his mother and the mother was not coming, which is odd.

So, I went outside to try and find the cow.  Bummer for me is that I fell painting the inside of my house a few days ago and hurt my knee.  Again.  We are not surprised.  The knee gets worse and worse each day, so I wasn’t planning on going on a walk to give it a rest.  But, I went to find the cow, because knee pain or no, Teller does not leave a calf alone mooing for his mama.

And I found the cow.

And she was dead.

Why?  I don’t know.  But she was dead, dead, dead.  And the calf would not stop mooing.  And it made me sad, sad, sad.

This is one of the cows that David bought at auction that calved earlier than we had expected her to.  So, David and I were calculating and figured the calf was only about 6 weeks old at the most.  David, LD, and I, went out when David and LD got home to try and wrangle the orphan calf so we could bottle feed him.

You know what is tricky?

Finding black cows in the dark.

And we have three calves that look pretty similar right now, so we were having trouble figuring out which one was the orphan.

Meanwhile, we noticed a cow on the ground that would not stand up, so we shifted our attention to her.  This cow was another one that came from the same auction.  We tried everything we could to get her up, but she could not stand.  So, we covered her in a bunch of hay for warmth and decided to check her in the morning.

She was still alive in the morning, but she looked much worse.  David went off to work and I got the kids off to school and started working.  Meanwhile, I called the vet, per David’s instructions, to see if I could go and pick up a steroid shot.  We had a cow down about a year and a half ago, and this vet let us pick up a steroid shot and it saved her.

Vet:  We are not able to give you a shot without a doctor examining the cow.

Me:  Ok.

Vet:  And we cannot get anyone out to you today.  Do you want to try for an appointment tomorrow?

Me:  Well.  I don’t think she will be alive tomorrow.

A bit later, the vet called back to say they could send a vet out on their lunch break and charge us for a farm call.  I said that was fine, but I wanted them to not leave until I called around lunch time to confirm the cow was still alive.

Now, it was 8:50am.  I am supposed to start live teaching at 9am, and I felt overwhelmingly stressed out.  I had no idea what to do.  I had a hard time imaginging myself teaching from my living room while looking out the window at a cow who was dying and her baby mooing right by her.

Yes.  That’s right.  We now had two babies without mothers.

So, I cried.  Naturally.  And then I texted a few neighbors and Farrier Friend for advice.  And then I taught first grade for a little bit.  And Farrier Friend called and said he would come and help me, so I asked a team teacher to cover my class for the rest of the day.

Farrier Friend (FF) came and we turned the cow.  This is the point in the day where I became covered in a mud/poo mixture.  Cows are heavy, and I deserve ice cream for using all those muscles to move that big cow.

Let the records show:  FF did 90% of the work and I contributed 10%.  But ice cream for me!

FF told me to cancel the vet.  He said the vet would only give me a big bill and the cow would die anyways.

Bummer.

Next, FF and I decided to wrangle the orphan calves.  And please understand that FF does all the work and I stand there and ask him if he wants me to do anything.  The calf of the cow that was already dead looked pretty big and was eating hay.  We decided to let him be and watch him.  I told Luis to rope a calf that I was 75% sure was the dying cow’s baby.  And he did.  And we led her to a pig pen so I could bottle feed her later.

Next FF told me he wanted to move the dying cow up to drier ground with his tractor.  While he went home to get his tractor, I was keeping an eye on the sickly cow and noticed a smaller calf hanging out by her.  And now I think the calf I had FF wrangle was the wrong calf.  Which was a gross errror on my part.

Before FF left, he told me the cow seemed pretty cold.  This bothered me as I feel like being cold and helpless is a colossal bummer, so I decided I should go out there and put blankets on her.  Because . . . ?  I don’t know.

I text David:  FF says the cow is cold.  I want to put blankets on her.  Would that be silly?

David:  Yes

So she did not receive blankets.  I probably should have done it anyways, huh?

FF comes back with his tractor.  This was all sorts of stressful for me to watch and involved chains and a cow flinging about high in the air.  He got her to drier ground and gave her an antibiotic.  Then he went to get some hay to put around her.  While I hung out with the cow.

And she died.  She just died.  Right when we were about to save her.

Dead.

So, I thanked FF profusely and then FF took his tractor and went home.  I went inside and made a bottle and walked out to my calf friend who we had stuck in a pig pen.

Calf friend is terrified of me and I wish I could tell her I am nice and want to be her friend..  I could not get her to let me even approach her with the bottle.  She kept slamming into the fencing and I saw blood on her mouth, so I called it quits.  I will wait for David.

But I also think I have the wrong calf.  But if I have a calf whose mother is alive, shouldn’t the mother be mooing for her and mad at me?  But then I see that tiny baby calf who I saw earlier walking around mooing and all alone and shouldn’t that calf have a mother?

I am all sorts of stressed out over here.

Oh!  And good news!

The puppy brothers have discovered the cows.  And what fun for them!  And they want to herd them!  And the mud is deeper than they are tall!

I am fit to be tied.  I have poop on my pants and it is not even mine.  I have a bottle full of milk replacer on the counter and no baby to feed it to.  I have three crazy dogs running all around the house, herding cats, because I won’t let them bother the cows.  My knee hurts something fierce and I think I am just going to cry and get in the hot tub now.

Happy Wednesday.