Billie Jean Had a Bull Calf

Monday, September 7, 2020
Hello friends,
              I am so ready for some cooler weather.  That hot dry wind really stressed the flowers.  If we can get some rain this week, it will really help.  The heat tends to unmotivated us.  We see projects we want to work on, but there are only so many hours of evening before it goes right to dark.  For example, this evening after chores, we needed to pick beans, lima beans, tomatoes, and peppers, water the garden, the blueberries, and the flowers down by the sign.  Then we had quite a few windfalls under the apple tree which we had to pick up, sorting into compost or salvage.  By that time, it was getting pretty dark.  It was just too warm to do those things during the day today.
              Billie Jean had her calf on Friday evening.  She made me go looking for him.  When she wasn’t with the rest of the cows waiting at the gate to be milked, we knew what was up.  I took the hike to the tree line at the back of lane 2 where the cows were lounging during that day.  There Billie Jean was munching grass,  acting all innocent.  When I started looking for her calf, she made that distinctive lowing sound.  She knew where he was and was not concerned, but she wasn’t going to let on.  The fence line is at almost the bottom of a pretty step hill, so I went to the bottom and worked my way up.  I found him curled up beside a tree, and he didn’t want to get up.  He was acting like he couldn’t walk yet, but I knew better since he was all dried off.  I wanted to make sure he had his first meal of colostrum since his tummy didn’t feel full, so I brought him over to Billie Jean and stood him up.  He was interested, but mom just wouldn’t hold still.  Then he would fall over and give up.  Not to worry, we brought her back to the milking parlor and milked out some of that precious rich first milk, put it in a bottle, and he went right for it!….