The Friday Morning Post

Hazel is now ten weeks old.

There are times, sadly, where I must take off my farming hat and enter society for awhile. I greatly dislike these times. And this is a complete 180 from my behavior during the first half of us living out here. I will be honest: I did not want to move out here and for a long time, I did not want to stay out here.

But, I digress.

If I am in town, then Hazel is not with me, and since I am her mother, she tends to miss me. And I, her. So, when I return, I walk out onto our back deck and call her name. And I would like to submit that there is nothing happier in this world than having a calf come hopping and leaping and wagging her tail towards you upon your homecoming.

I have cut out one of her bottles.

Stand down, Reader! I am still giving her the recommended amount. For awhile, I added a third bottle because she became so violent and full of rage when the milk stopped flowing. She needs to learn how to be a cow and eat some grass, too.

She is trying to decide her opinion on hay.

She totally wants a bottle. But I must remain firm and help her to learn how to be a bovine. Parenting is hard, friends. I am to be her mother, not her buddy.

***

We have two mysteries going on over here.

That’s right. TWO.

The first one is the missing, older heifer calf. And some people were like, “Oh, is Hazel the one missing?” And, seriously. If Hazel was missing I would have organized 17 search parties and there would have been weeping and gnashing of teeth.

No. Hazel is not missing. A 9 month old heifer calf and steer escaped on Saturday. These two were new to Maliblahblah farms and a bit more on the wild side. When they escaped, they ran for their lives away from us. The steer wandered back home late Saturday night, but the heifer is still missing. And she has been missing for 6 days and we have seen no sign of her. We have left a fence panel open for her with hay and water in hopes of luring her back, but she is like totally gone. She shall be known as The Mysterious Wild Heifer who Roams the Hills.

The second mystery has completely baffled me.

David has recently brought home a few bred cows that he purchased from auction. Luckily, they are all pretagged, so it is easier for me to keep track of who is who. And instead of bestowing a lovely name for the cows, I call them clever things like:

Cow R350.

Because that is what her tag reads.

Sometimes the cows he buys are a bit more on the wild side and prefer if we do not lay our eyes upon them. You might remember Elusive with a Tag and Elusive without a Tag from last season. Those two gals were absolutely insane, but they have since calmed down and permit you to walk near them and such without losing their ever loving minds.

Anyways.

On Monday, I happened upon cow R350 and her new calf.

Yes. She was murdering me with her eyes.

I check on the cows at least twice a day, and I wasn’t seeing this pair. Which isn’t super odd, because, again, she wants to kill me, so naturally, she is not a fan of making herself visible.

But then I started seeing the cow, but no calf.

And cow R350 is now hanging out with all the other cows with a placenta hanging out her back end and the biggest udder you have ever seen in your whole entire life.

It began to bother me that I never saw a calf, and it seemed like the cow was never away from the herd, presumably with her calf, so I started to search for this calf. For hours upon hours and days upon days, trashing my knee and annoying my teenagers by FORCING them to come and look.

Mom, this is so dumb. Gosh.

All of our calves, except cow R350’s have been tagged, so it would be obvious if we happened upon her calf-we were just looking for an untagged calf.

And then.

I found one! But it was far away from everyone else with another cow David had recently purchased.

This cow is called: “You know that 8+ month pregnant cow David recently bought.”

Because she is also absolutely insane and I haven’t gotten close enough to read her tag number, but I do know it is mint green.

Anyways, after much observation, David and I have concluded that the untagged calf belonged to the cow known as “You know that 8+ month pregnant cow David recently bought,” and not cow R350.

David tagged this calf, so now we are back to looking for the untagged calf of cow R350.

This calf is definitely dead. I know, I know. Very sad and grievious. But if it was alive, it would be drinking milk from the mother and that mother is never feeding a baby and her udder is the biggest udder any human has ever seen.

But where is the calf and its body?

Cow R350 and “You know that 8+ month pregnant cow David recently bought” hang out together with the one calf and like to murder me dead with their eyes.