Northern Farmer

Again the week is coming to an end, and as I stated earlier, fall is in the air in these parts. Nothing freezing yet, but short sleeve weather has slipped south for a bit. Got everything ready for the main chopping of corn silage today and plan on starting Monday or Tuesday. All looks good and I’m ready too! Shot an old cow today and buried her, one of my pet cows, an old Hereford, old style Hereford. Shes been around here since the early nineties and had a perfect calf every single year, on time. The old style Herefords had a couple of draw backs and one is the susceptibility to cancer eye. I noticed it this spring just before she was to calve and had to make a decision of trying to salvage her then or ride it through till the calf was born and raised up a few months. Even with the cancer eye just starting I refuse to put it in the food chain for either our own family or any customers. Well that cancer ate away at her head steadily but she kept right on going, never lost any weight, got around very well, ate like a cow and raised up a fine calf. Today when that herd came home for a bit of silage we separated her away from the rest, including her calf and I put her down.

Funny thing about farming, and I’ve been told this by several people. I can go back through the years and tell a story about just about all the cows, I remember when they were born, I remember when they had calves and how they did. I remember the trouble some caused. And I especially remember the steady girls, the ones that did their job year after year and never caused one lick of trouble. Can remember the weather decades back when the events took place. This old girl has so many of her bloodline in the herd that its incredible. She was a heifer maker! Starting with Marlene in the early nineties. Her first calf born in the end of May out on pasture. Nice heifer calf, and one day I was out there checking when she was only a few days old and she had the scours, a rare thing on our pastures. In fact I can’t ever remember another case of scours in the pastures since that time. But Marlene the heifer calf had it so bad she couldn’t even get her up. And that first calf Hereford heifer was all concerned. We carried the calf home with the Hereford following us calmly. Got her in the calving barn where we have a headgate and squeeze shoot, put her in that and milked her to stomach tube the calf. We did that for a couple days, never so much as a kick came from that Hereford as she was being milked. On the third day I was alone and came to milk her, she just looked at me calmly and I did something I had never done before and have never done since with any other cow on the place. I was able to milk her calmly right out in the open! Well, in a few days the calf was getting better, the Hereford was always calm and let me do the milking, and soon the calf was up and able to continue on with normal life. That calf named Marlene is still with us too. In fact every heifer I ever saved from that Hereford is still with us. Steady gals, always doing what they are supposed to do here. Come a rough winter, they never loose their condition, always stay fat even with the limited feed we have had the last couple of years. These cattle are a cattleman’s cattle! All of that Hereford’s calves were born with sufficient pigment in the eyelids to prevent cancer eye. They’re breeding em for that nowadays, the old experienced Hereford breeders I mean. It used to be a major problem with that breed, but is slowly phasing out, which is OK with me. The cancer is the same as skin cancer on a human, the Hereford’s eye lids were very pale, just like people with very pale skin are more prone to skin problems then folks with a little darker tone of skin.

Tonight that old Hereford is buried out in the back woods near a big oak tree. Allot of memories with that old girl, good memories. If I had a hundred cows like her I’d have it made. But steadily the herd is going that way. Good mothers, not the hotshot breeding that they tout up for the cattle “industry”. But a breeding that’s for the farmer or rancher. A good cow, low maintenance cow. And if the cancer eyes can be beat they are almost trouble free. I was thinking this evening how God brings animals into a person’s life, a family’s life, and how the memories can be made with such simple creatures. How a person can even sit down and write about them, almost as friends. I don’t have time to look it up but in Proverbs I came across a little thing, about a farmer treating his animals good, and he will be blessed, or something like that. So even in the Bible God has covered that for our instruction.

Tomorrow’s church so I’d better finish up around here. I have the majority of tomorrow morning’s chores either done or in place so the remaining chores won’t take more than a couple of hours. I sure do look forward to church every Sunday! Gonna pray my heart out in joy to such a wonderful God, one that takes care of our every need. Praise Him for the huge job coming up with the silage. And praise Him for so many blessed years with that old Hereford.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 6th, 2008 at 7:28 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.