Ruby

We recently acquired a bottle calf from one of our neighbors. And did you know that we call anyone who lives within 15 minutes of us our neighbor? It is a weird characteristic of us.

Anyways. Meet Ruby.

Her mama rejected her, so now, I get to be her mama. I was trying not to fall in love with her, because, you know, I fell in love with Hazel once upon a time and she only broke my heart.

But, alas. It is too late. I am smitten.

We decided to keep her in our backyard with our dogs, so naturally, she has started to just play with the dogs.

She loves her bottles. Can’t get enough of them. And when they run dry, she is displeased and headbutts me.

Violent, yes? But we shan’t blame her. Because calves use their heads to knock into their mama’s udders in real life when they want more food. So she’s just doing her thing.

My first graders are getting an absolute kick out of Ruby stories. I write them little stories with questions and they work so hard to read them-much more so than a regular reading passage I might use. So Ruby is pretty much going to help bring all my kids up past a first grade reading level. I just know it.

I have this one student. And how should I put this? She struggles. With it all. With all the things. And she would not stop talking and interrupting in the back row. One of my boys completely lost it and threw his hands up and said/shouted:

“Can you PLEASE STOP TALKING! I am trying to listen to the COW STORY!”

I would feed Ruby a bottle and then have to run for my life to escape her fury. She would try to follow me into the house, but I would close the door right in her precious face. One morning, HD was yelling from the basement-

“MOM! The calf is in the house and is sucking on my dirty clothes pile!”

And that, Reader, was when I discovered that Ruby could open our door. After a bit of stalking and spying on my part, I found that when I was closing the door on her, the door handle (which is more like a lever and not a round knob) would be closed right in her face at mouth level. So Ruby, who is obviously a genius, decides to start nursing on the door handle. And in all her eagerness, she was pushing on the door as she was nursing.

Eventually, the door would open.

Don’t mind the state of the door. We are in the throes of a remodel. And at the rate this is going, we will be in this remodel until the year 2037. But, I digress.

So, Ruby, in her quest for more milk, would nurse the door, open the door, and then she was nursing on HD’s clothes. And I love her.

After school every day, I would make a bottle and feed Ruby. She would down a 3 quart bottle in about 90 seconds. And then, because she is greedy and ravenous, she would headbutt me for about ten minutes trying to get more milk. All of this bonding time with her somehow turned into her going out on big walks with me and the dogs. And I’ll tell you what. There is nothing more precious in this world than when a calf has discovered its legs and starts to run and hop about.

Nothing.

And, so, I am smitten. I would also like to research and make a business plan where I can love and raise bottle calves and quit my day job.

I will keep you abreast of the situation.

Meanwhile, we have 14 mama cows and they keep popping out more precious calves. Unlike Ruby, these calves find humans to be terrifying, but they are still cute nonetheless. Every day after school, I take “cow inventory.” It is a very important task that I have given myself and I traipse around and make sure I have eyes on each cow and each calf to make sure no one DIED and see if there are any new precious calves for me to love and adore. One day, I found a newborn so very very far away from her mom. David and I were concerned with the distance, so we decided to just grab her and move her to her mom.

Her eyes kill me dead in this photo.

So, yes, we are surrounded with babies and cuteness.

A few days ago, one of our first time mamas calved and lost the baby. This heifer was born on our property. She is my best gal, Matilda’s, calf from a couple year ago-here is a flashback to this gal as a new baby.

I call her Tillie

So Tillie grew up and had her first baby and immediately lost it. So, I had the idea that we should see if Tillie would adopt and nurse Ruby.

It was an entire event that included building a new temporary pen and David bedazzling the boys and I with his exemplary roping skills, but we got Tillie hobbled and haltered and we attempted to force her to love Ruby.

She does not love her time with Ruby has much as I do.

And so, I go out morning and night and arrange the nursing meet up. I think bottles were easier, but I am wondering if this would be better in the long run? I have no idea how long it should take for a mama to adopt one that isn’t her own. So. We shall just keep trying for a bit.

Happy Thursday!