Spring Calves

Spring is great, with all the trees and plants and grass coming to life again after a dull, drab winter. We've got redbud trees, forsythias, sandhill plum bushes, and all kinds of things blooming. More flowers will come along as spring progresses. I also enjoy hearing the birds singing.


Baby animals are also cute to see. Now I've enjoyed a lot of baby animals through the years - kittens, pups, foals, chicks, and what-all. And I've always enjoyed seeing calves in pastures. But this year the calves have particularly caught my attention for some reason. I love seeing them out in the pastures with their mommas.


Though my husband and I don't own cattle, we help keep an eye on various pastures for a couple of friends. We go out and "check cattle," and help with any fence that needs fixed or any cattle that get out. It's just something we enjoy doing. Now that we have a pickup, that's a little more appropriate for such a job.

But the other day, as we sometimes do, we went out in the car.


Sure enough, we found some cattle out. They weren't where they belonged. Blame the hotwire! So down the bumpy lane by a wheat field we went. In the car.


It was two momma cows and four calves. They had gotten out of their own pasture, and were by the neighbor's pasture of steers. The steers were crowding the fence, they were curious. So to make a long story short, we had to do some maneuvering with the car to both get the cows and calves more where they needed to be, then to block the one gateless fence opening. Thankfully, it worked!


The thing was, those calves were LITTLE! They could scoot around the car! They could slip under the neighboring fence! One little guy got in with the steers, and wow, here they came .... right up to the little guy, sniffing and checking him out. Finally, he slipped back to the other side where his momma was.


At one point, the calves were behind us, and the cows were in front of us, and the gate was blocked. The one momma cow called and called for her baby! "Moo-oo-oo!! Moo-oo-oo-oo!!" Finally, they got back together and she settled down.


As we got them all in the right place further down the hill, so we could close a gate behind them, another cute little calf slipped under the fence among the steers. We kind of worried about that, because those steers were bigger and "feeling their oats." But when we called the owner, he said not to worry, they were just "playing" and the calf would probably get back on the other side O.K. So we left that situation alone to work itself out.


As we got the calves and cows back down the hill, the steers followed along the fence. But one ornery guy lagged behind, and boy was he in a dither. Don't know if he was mad or playful, but he just stood there at the fence looking at us, acting all agitated. My husband gave him a talking-to, I think, and finally he headed down the fenceline to join his buddies. But all the way down, his tail was in a kink, his head was tossing, and he was kickin' up his heels!


Then we had the job of finding the problem with the hotwire. I'll just say we found it, and hubby was able to get it back into working order. It was a nice day to be out, thankfully. Now if those cows will just stay put.