- Lessa
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- yesterday at the farm...
Good Monday dear non-farmer expecting value today, how’s your weekend been?
You can swipe me away right now if you’re looking for LinkedIn guides.
Cz yesterday…
Well, let’s just say i didn’t have the hands to type the words.
You see…
My Sunday evening milk shift escalated quickly.
The farmer was 150km away on an old people’s party, meaning…
My young farm girl colleague and me were gonna handle the cows.
Easy.
Or was it……
4:45 pm, I was still at home (procrastinating on my newsletter), when i get a text that looks kinda urgent:
‘The ginger cow is going into labour!!!!!!
I’M ALONE GET TF OVER HERE’
Farm girl sounds calm and collected.
have some German
Determined to not freak out myself, i change my sweatpants for my farm gear, fall into my car and rely on Coldplay to calm the nerves.
Cz u know…
That ginger cow…
Is a Halloween gift from 1 of our milkers.
(we got her as a calf 3 years ago)
No pressure, cz…
Today’s her first birth and…
She’s the only ginger cow we got on the farm.
You could say….
she holds some sentimental value.
(as sentimental as farmers get)
To up the stakes even further…...
She’s old for having her first calf.
(which complicates the birthing process)
You see, cows usually get their first calf when they’re around 2 years old. If you wait much longer, the cow gets much bigger….
And a fat behind doesn’t stretch as well as a non-fat one.
(ive lost all u inclusivity experts rn)
hear me out will you
Try getting a calf out of a cow…
who’s birth canal won’t stretch.
To my point:
Our Halloween lady is 3 years old.
And she’s... well-fed.
This ain’t gonna be easy labour…
With no farmer around to save the day.
(plenty to freak out over in 30 mins of traffic)
Ok so I arrive and…
I hear it before i enter the stable.
120 decibels of mooing. Halloween cow is in pain.
When i walk in, farm girl is trying to soothe her.
And both…. are still standing.
(not ideal)
So what i do?
I grab an enormous orange plastic glove that covers my fingertips til my shoulders and investigate state and position of the calf.
Great news: it’s still alive.
Mediocre news: I got no fucking clue how to get it out there… in time.
You guessed it:
Mama cow ain’t stretchy enough.
It will take us a while… to get the calf through.
Here’s the thing:
The cow’s an hour into labour already.
The clock is ticking against us.
Our only option?
We do the stretching.
Picture it or don’t….
2 freaked out farm girls shoulder deep into 1 cow.
You see…
Life’s about timing.
(ur lesson of the day)
You can’t wait too long for the cow to stretch naturally. (the calf dies)
You can’t pull it out ahead of time… (it simply won’t fit)
You get our dilemma.
Now…
Pumped with adrenaline, we got one mission:
1) Keep mama cow alive
2) Keep the calf alive…and out of there
So we stretch.
For 37 minutes.
(and sweat, and pull the calf’s feet, and stretch again)
Until finally…..
The head comes through.
This is what we’ve been working for.
This is when you win.
This is when you get the calf in whole.
Until… well, you don’t.
(Mama cow had made 1 BIG calf)
Of course it got stuck again…. at the shoulders.
More pulling. We got ropes around its little feet now.
Mama cow collapses to the ground.
(she’s still mooing)
Pulling again.
Stretching again.
The shoulders of the calf are finally out.
Now you gotta be quick cz the calf ain’t breathing yet…
It’s oxygen supply dwindles with every second.
With the luck we got…
The calf still didn’t fit.
It got stuck.
AGAIN.
(at the hip)
PRETTY DANG BIG CALF WE GOT THERE.
(ginger too)
Every inch of us is panicking.
13 seconds of final pulling efforts…
until finally…
IT’S OUT.
Mama cow is panting.
(so are we)
I look at farm girl, she’s white as a ghost.
The calf doesn’t move.
Are we too late?
We pull it up at its feet.
I check its nostrils.
To our surprise…
it’s still breathing.
It’s alive.
Mama cow is alive.
Next to our new Halloween calf…
Farm girl and me collapse into a bed of straw.
We’ve made it.
Only 71 cows to milk to go.
hi pretty
WHAT’S UR LESSON????
1) Timing is important
2) Halloween cows are important
3) Don’t feed your cow too much for dinner
xxx Lessa
PS- Want strangers on the Internet to care about ur random stories?
You can live with people ignoring your stuff…
Or you can get help.
(i know a thing or 2 about getting you noticed)
↳ Reply to this email with ‘Halloween cow’.