Last week held one long, full, full day. It was the kind of day that can't rightly be said to have begun properly at any particular time nor to have ended--it was just spent. It was a birthing time, one of those midwifery moments where sunsets and sunrises seem to blur and moments race by, and then all time slows, even seems to stop, and when it starts again, all proceeds in slow motion. Afterward, when it speeds up and all has transpired that will, you are left in that moment, unsure of how to step forward into the new time, into the new space created.
Tuesday was a regular delivery day. Phil got on the road in the morning as usual, we did our lessons and farmwork during the day. We kept a watchful eye on Bonnie and Cricket, both expecting calves soon. You may remember Bonnie as our queen. She was the first cow of the Quill's End dairy enterprise and came to us in the cold January of 2009. We warmed blankets for her then as she adjusted to her new surroundings with shivers. She taught Phil how to milk again and taught us about dairy cows-- but only the most grounded, reasonable dairy cows. She has been the cow we allow small children to milk when they come to visit and want to try their hand at it.
Even though we know better, Queen Bonnie came to be the emblem of Quill's End in our hearts--steadfast, as we always strive to be, solid, and trustworthy. Somehow in her quiet, yet strong (if you are a cow you did NOT want to cross the queen!) way Bonnie came to embody the spirit of Quill's End. She turned 15 in January, a graying, stately queen. We all went into this calving with concern. It began a little before midnight, when time started to slow. The barn is a louder place than you might think at that time, and there was a busy nightlife outside the barn as well as within. As I crouched observing the labor and helping her to situate herself, coyotes yipped in the not too far distance, the ducks flapped and fluttered about, the cows rubbed on the posts and walls while others ate loudly, a skunk scented the night air with its foul odor. As the night wore on and Bonnie shifted about, she needed support during contractions. She was doing well, all was going fine, but she wasn't strong enough to keep herself upright in between times. I crouched next to her shoulder, counterpressure for the pushing times, rising and falling as she did, breathing with her, listening to the coyotes, smelling the skunks, talking to her. Time stilled. There was only cow breath, heaving, pushing, countering, rising and falling. Growing colder, I grew aware time was actually passing. Only the nose of the calf had presented. We would need help. Phil joined us to assist her delivery. The silent hope for a heifer to carry on the queen's legacy grew in those slow motion moments, but few words were spoken. Phil washed up, his arms steaming in the cold barn. The stillborn calf was a bull. The queen rested, upright, but tired. She quit contracting and was too weak to stand. We rested for a few hours and let her rest, too. She was fine in the morning, but hadn't delivered the afterbirth and could not stand. Her back-end had grown arthritic and weaker. We knew the difficult moment had come, the time we wouldn't set aside before, had arrived. It was time to say good-bye. We made the decision to have her put down.
We knew better than to allow one cow to become the spirit of the farm, but it didn't matter. She just did it.
And, now she is gone.
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| Queen Bonnie Newly Freshened |
This is not only a new chapter for us, but also for the herd she has led. By mid-afternoon, friend Deb stopped by and wondered if the cows were supposed to be out of the barn. As she and Carolyn went back out, the cows headed down the driveway, all of them. Carolyn called after them and Cricket, herself so large and expectant, turned around. The others didn't. She ran after them into the highway while Deb went to the top of the hill to slow traffic. I grabbed a bucket of grain and called and called. Ben's cow, Teeter, never one to hurry, returned, too. She and Cricket stayed home while Carolyn raced down Rte. 15 after the others, now in full spring turnout mode, kicking up their heels. They ran right toward the field across the road where Bonnie had been buried just a short time before. And there they stopped.
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| The Queen leads the way. (With Cricket right behind.) |
Carolyn got them turned around. I called and shook the bucket. They came back and we led them back home, back to the barn. You must know it is not in the nature of dairy cows to do anything out of the usual, definitely not to bust out of the barn and into the highway. We all felt sure they were looking for the queen. Back in the barn, a bit wild-eyed, they paced unsettled, mooing their question, where's the queen?
Oh, heart. Which of you will fill the void?
While we caught our breath for a spell, evening chore time arrived and Phil brought an announcement with his first pail of milk into the kitchen, Cricket was in labor.
Oh, Lord. Mercy, Lord, mercy. Phil and Ben kept an eye on her and things progressed quickly, pushing, hooves and nose presenting (just right), mama doing great. By the time I was washing up the milking dishes, Cricket had delivered a heifer calf. She practically walked herself out, they said, and Cricket was up on all fours immediately licking off that new babe. All has gone normally with their delivery and post-partum, the calf is frisking about the barn at 4 days old and Cricket is rugged and robust as always. Relief, if not joy, would end the day.
But, it wasn't the end. The field crew, MacDuff the bull and the two up and coming young heifers, Dandy and Alice, were right agitated by all this excitement, too. The girls calmed down after a bit, but for days MacDuff has paced the fenceline, mooing mournfully, as all the hormones of birth and death have caught the farm up in a swirling vortex that is only now calming. MacDuff has been the call and response to the barn giving a voice to all that has happened here this week. It is only today that he has quieted, lying down again next to his ladies, letting time pass by a little.
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| MacDuff by sunset. |
So an ending makes way for a beginning and that transition has been all upheaval. Our farm girl grew into some pretty big shoes, the first farmer on the scene of the breakaway cow saga. And, she handled it...well. These are the times that grow girls up, not in the ways we wish, but in the ways that come. We are moving into a new chapter with a sad farewell to the solid queen who started us down this road.
Sweet farming folk singers sang to us this weekend at the Grange, sang words of persistence when it all breaks. It's no small wonder, they sang, that we carry on this way. It is no small wonder. A girl sprinting in her dress and brother's too-big boots down the highway, the coyotes song at midnight, Cricket's frisking calf, twice daily milking no matter what, pizza appearing by magic in an adrenaline haze, the mournful call of a young bull, love and loss. It's all no small wonder.
