Mus'ing

Orange Spot on a Sea of White

                        Orange spot in a sea of white





        At the time of dinner a few snowflakes were falling. By the time school let out the ground was completely white. The country school was like most rural schools in the sixties across the Midwest in the United States of America. The teachers were anxious to have parents come for their children, so they could go home before the weather became worse.





      One young lad, Charles, had been looking out the windows of the school all afternoon, thinking about what needed to be done when he got home. His father wasn't home and he had been left with the responsibility of the farm place. A fall snowstorm would give him twice as much to do as when the weather was nice and dry. The hours drug by as Charles waited for school to let out. The afternoon in school was a total waste as far as that young boy of thirteen was concerned.





      When Charles and his sisters were brought home by their mother, he ran to put on his chore clothes and then headed outside. It would be another hour before the milk cows needed to come into the barn from the pasture, but the cows would need to be under the loafing-shed for the night and on dry straw, so their teats would not freeze on the cold wet ground. There were straw bales up in the hay-loft above the stanchions, so Charles ran up the ladder and opened the little door that led to the outside. He  threw five straw bales down the twelve foot drop to the ground at which time a bale sting broke and the bale fell apart. Charles ran down the ladder and out to the bales. He picked one of the bales up and ran around the milk barn to the loafing-shed and pulled the strings off that held the bale together. Next he spread the straw with his feet and then ran back to the other bales to do the trip all over again. The last bale that was already broken he had to make three trips to get the bale under the loafing-shed. Then he filled up the hay rack with hay bales from the hay-loft.





      By this time it was time to put ground corn in front of the stanchions in the milk barn. The milk cows were anxious to get into the barn and were already waiting outside. Charles looked over the nine milk-cows and saw a heifer was missing. He looked towards the snow covered pasture in frustration.





      The sky was turning dark and snow was falling heavier than ever. The pasture was only ten acres, but Charles could only see down to the end of the lane that led to the pasture. The first thing that popped into Charles mind was, 'Darn you Snorty, why did you have to pick this time to have a calf? I hope you can have it!'





      When Charles was nine, Dad had brought home four milk-cows. Two of them were Jerseys and two of them were Brown Swiss. The first question Mom asked Dad was, “What are you going to use for a bull?”





    His reply was, “We are going to use a bull from a jug.”





    “What?”!! Mom was flummoxed. “What in the world is that?”





    Scientists had discovered a way to freeze bull semen and put it in a frozen container, to be used when needed. So the man that inseminated the cows was our traveling bull.





      Jersey is a breed that comes from the Jersey Islands. They are small, finely boned and are known to be gentle. A Jersey milk-cow is six to seven hundred pounds. Dad decided that when we got the cows, we would breed one Jersey to Jersey bulls and the other Jersey to a Beef Shorthorn. When Red, (The Jersey cow that was hard milking.) came into heat to be bred, the inseminator told Mom that he didn't have Shorthorn in the jug, but he had something close. Dad was away from home, working, and couldn't tell her what to do, so Mom said, “Go ahead and inseminate Red.”





      When Dad got home, Mom asked, “What is a Santa Gertrudis?”





      “Oh Mom, what did he do? Yes, Santa Gertrudis is 5/8th Shorthorn, but it is also 3/8th Brahma. Santa Gertrudis Bulls grow up to four thousand pounds. If Red catches, that calf will kill her!”





      Red did become pregnant, but the good lord was looking out for her. She had a heifer calf and she had it early. It only weighed 95lb. A Jersey calf will only weigh between 40-60 pounds. Red was able to have the calf with a lot of help from Charles. He put hay bale twine around the front feet of the calf and pulled while Red pushed until the calf came out of the birth channel. It had a flaming red color to its hide and the girls named it Gurty, because it was half Santa Gertrudis. When Gurty got to be a year old, Charles nicknamed it Snorty, because it would blow snot out of its nose when anyone would get close to it and run to the other end of the pasture.





      Snorty was over two years old now and she was breed to a White Charolais, also from a jug. She was twice the size of her Jersey mother and Dad thought that she could have a Charolais calf. Charles wasn't so sure. Now she was missing!





    Charles knew that when his sisters came out of the house to help milk the cows,(Milking was still done by hand) they would let the cows into the barn and start milking. Charles went looking for Snorty. Since the lane was closest to the west end of the pasture, he went along the west fence to the south end of the pasture. No Snorty. He followed the south fence to the east end of the pasture and crossed the creek as he went. No Snorty. Charles followed the east fence to the north and there he found Snorty. She was a red silhouette in the creek bed all by herself. At least, that was what Charles thought until he got closer. At her feet was an orange ball that was shivering and shaking. Now Charles had to figure out how to get her baby to the barn.





      Charles approached as Snorty commenced to blowing snot and bellowing, trying to get Charles to stay away from her little darling. Charles started to talk to Snorty in a quiet soothing voice as he took half steps to the calf. The calf was bobbing her head up and down, barely having enough strength to hold its head up. Charles stopped by the calf and looked to see what it was. It was a girl. 'Good', Charles thought, 'That should make her lighter to carry.' He picked up the calf and Snorty nudged Charles as if to say, 'Drop her and I won't hit you!' Charles backed up with the calf and Snorty started following him. Charles then turned around and started walking to the barn. Fifty feet away Charles looked back and Snorty had ran back to where she had given birth to her calf. Charles put the calf down and tried to get the calf to stand, He backed up ten feet and imitated a calf crying out in fear. Snorty came charging back to Charles and as she passed her calf realized her calf was standing, unmolested. She went back to the calf and started licking it. The calf lost its balance and fell over into the snow. Charles picked up the wet,cold critter and once more walked backwards, all the way to the barn with the cow following, nudging the calf and almost knocking Charles over at times.





    As Charles approached the barn he could see that his sisters had let the milk-cows into the barn. Yelling through a crack in the door he asked for them to open the door. When Charles walked in with the calf, leading Snorty, the girls stated, “We don't need them in the alley. Put Gurty in the lean-to.”





    After the cows were milked and out into the loafing-shed, Charles noticed Snorty was kicking at her calf, so he brought her back into the milking-barn and put her into a stanchion. Charles finally had the calf sucking her mother but the calf was having a tough time of it, getting milk out of Snorty. She had teats like her mother, they were small and hard to squeeze the milk out of them.





      Four days later, Dad came home and looked at the big bag of Snorty and said, “Charles, you need to ween the calf from Gurty and start milking her. She's giving way too much milk for just that calf!”


           


      All that ran through Charles's mind was, 'O great, that's just what I need!'