The Barnyard Nursery

Journal Entry  for July 1990

The morning is cool – a refreshing change from the upper nineties and low one hundred degree weather of this past week.  Its  “due time” for Lucy, Reppert’s Jersey mama.  We are keeping her in our barnyard for the time being since I can keep a close watch on her while I tend our own calves.  I have been out several times to check on her and the other three,  Emma, our Jersey, and her two calves.

I have taken some time to sit on the hillside to enjoy the drama of this barnyard nursery.  Lucy and Emma are contentedly tossing small piles of strewn hay looking for clumps of more succulent brome caught in the drier hay.  Eventually, they will clean up the whole pile, but the adventure of finding the best first seems to be a trait common to most of these animals.

The barnyard is packed brown dirt since the rain seems to have passed us by this month. Here and there are little patches of buffalo burr with their yellow flowers peeking through the spiny leaves.  Those yellow flowers will soon become the nasty burrs that stick in tails and manes of the horses, tails of the cows, and the coat of my poor Bear.

I study Lucy for awhile to look for signs that she may be close to calving.  Lucy, her beautiful brown eyes focused on the hay in front of her, is not in the throes of calving; she is too content.

Now I turn my attention to the calves.   Both of the calves belong to Emma now.  We celebrated the birth of the little heifer, Susie, born in the barnyard a week ago.  The other little calf is a bull calf, born to another mother on a dairy farm.  Since he was taken immediately from his mother so she could give her milk to the dairy, we brought him home for Emma to raise.  Most of these dairy calves are bottle-fed, but switching them to another mother is better for the calves.  Emma quickly adopted him and is feeding him as though he were her own calf.

I watch as Lucy’s young heifer wanders far from her mother, totally self-confident and very curious. Our black Lab, Bear, and our yellow cat, Tom are here with me, and the calf is captivated by their movements.  She follows them at a safe distance for a while, and then, risking her margin of safety,occasionally comes nose-to-nose with Bear.  When the Lab reaches out to lick her nose, she jumps in the air and darts away.  Brave, yet there is a limit to the chances any self-respecting calf can take.

The difference between the natural calf and the adopted calf, Charlie, has been very interesting .  After being taken from his own mother, he has a hard time leaving Emma’s side.  Like a little gnat he clung first to her teets, and even now he hovers by her.   He has less of an adventuresome spirit because of his fear of being abandoned again.  Meanwhile, Susie, the little heifer,  wanders through the  weeds in the barnyard, picking fights with the tall grass on the side of the hill.

How long, I wonder, will it take Charlie to realize that Emma will not leave him an orphan again?

I wonder, also, how indelibly it is written in my own soul that He, my Father, will never leave me?  Will I always trust that I am His adopted child forever?  Can I be as confident as that little heifer who is enjoying her freedom?