Our farm is rented in February to a rancher that likes to ‘calf- out’ on our land.  The ‘girls’ get to have lots of neat things to eat the month of their due date: corn, hay, bean straw, weeds and weeds and more weeds and last year’s cattails (which are really yummy).

They do lots of good (about 82 head of moms-to-be) and our tiny group add much needed fertilizer onto the farming ground, and help munch down all the weeds and cattails and prune the sage and Chico brush (just the tips are a delicious treat), getting the farm ready for spring work.

In return the cows get a fairly safe place to have their calves. Randomly we (and the cows) will have a tussle with the coyotes and the calves always loose.  Coyotes are sneaky killers waiting for the cow to be in labor and for the calf to be ‘coming out’.  Cows can’t see their backside so therefore can’t protect themselves from an attack from either wild dogs or coyotes.  As the calf emerges the coyotes drag the baby from the mom and immediately kill and eat it.  Sometimes they will take on the mom too.  And NO they DO NOT HAVE TO BE HUNGRY TO DO THIS…they just have to want too.

So we all start patrolling the farm, the ranch guys come by, and we go out.  It’s important that ‘critters’ stay away….far away…from the maternity ward!

Yes, we have wild dogs….thanks to those PEOPLE who just don’t want a dog anymore and take it to the country hoping it will survive.  Most of the time the dogs either—-die, get ran over, or join with the other wild dogs that run the drain ditches and the canyons looking for food. Sometimes we country folk can catch the dogs (like I got Fuzzy) and can make them ours, but most of the time that doesn’t happen.

 These animals always hang close to farms BECAUSE THEY WERE ONCE RAISED IN A FAMILY OF PEOPLE and kill livestock for fun/pleasure and Food.

Raising animals and being a good protector of those in your care is a full-time job.  I would hate to meet someone who lived on our farm in the bye-and-bye and have them say I didn’t do a very good job.  Makes me sad to even think that could happen.

So anyway, the girls are back.  These are the great-great-great granddaughters of cows that have been coming to our maternity ward for years and years.

It’s always good to see them again.

Linda