January 19,2022
“There’s a cow running down the road”
Mike was standing at the front window, offering an unsolicited “play
by play” account of what he was seeing and it was making me anxious. Walking across the floor I pulled on my overalls
covering my pajamas. I could see flashing blue lights and they totally
disoriented me. A police car? I had rarely even seen a law enforcement vehicle
on our road since we moved here almost five years ago. When I did, it was usually driving along
casually or on the way to a fire.
“Oh my gosh!” I gasped with
complete disgusts. “That officer is using
his car to herd the cow and is driving much too quickly. She is terrified of the blue lights and has
nowhere to go.” (There was a guard rail on one side of the road and a deep
ditch with a creek running through it on the other, besides mounds of snow on
either side of the paved road where the snowplows had pushed it.) I was out the door even before I finished my
thought, grabbing my coat, and slipping on my muck boots as I pass through the mud
room. I sprinted across the yard and
registered all four dogs barking at the commotion. I reached the driveway with the sudden
realization that if I rushed it, going as fast as I was going, I was asking for
a serious fall. The cold temperatures
had turned what bit of snow had melted into ice. While I contemplated getting down the steep
driveway without injuring myself, I spewed and muttered my frustrations. I
watched the terrified cow make the sudden decision to turn right, cross our
bridge, and run toward me.
I said a four-letter word, jumped back, and watching the cow run
past me, made a split-second decision to go after the officer rather than the
cow. I knew she would come up against
the fences and barn and not be able to go anywhere without retracing her
steps. I ran as fast as I could without
falling, waving my arms, just upset enough to make me forget about how I might
look (or more importantly the fact that I was racing towards an altercation
with law enforcement because I was too hot headed about the mishandling of the
cow to exhibit any patience.) The
officer, either not seeing or ignoring this crazy woman, swung his patrol car
quickly into the driveway, backed out with speed, and hurried down the road with
blue lights still flashing.
If I wasn’t angry before, I was angry now!
My initial fear, when Mike said there was a cow in the road, was
that a gate had been left open and one of my Jerseys had wandered out. I knew this cow belonged to a neighboring farm
and wasn’t mine, but I would have to deal with that later. Now
that the trooper was gone, I directed my attention to the vehicles and
individuals standing in the road. To get
to them, I had to go down my driveway, cross the bridge, and walk a little
distance. I didn’t want to approach them
unannounced. This is rural Appalachia
and one just assumes that others are armed and will use force if they feel
threatened. I yelled and waved my arms
letting them know I was coming into camp, so to speak. In retrospect, I am sure
I looked like a crazy, old woman but to his credit, a young man met me halfway
down the road. As walked toward one another we began our conversation. I yelled to the man telling him that wasn’t
my cow. The man was yelling back that someone
had hit a cow and the car was totaled.
When we finally reached the same spot in the road, the two of us turned back
toward my house and the runaway cow. By
this time, Mike had managed to make it out and met up with us. We walked together to the barnyard quickly
discussing what to do about the cow. With
no hesitation, I told Mike and this Good Samaritan that I wanted the cow off my
property. We had dealings with these cattle and perhaps this particular cow
when they had tramped our yard and pushed into our barnyard. The absent owner
had been unresponsive at that time and I wasn’t dealing with a wild cow who
would terrorize my smaller, tame cattle. The cow was anxious, but we managed to
move her. Mike then asked me to return to the house to look up the rancher’s
name and number. Once I retrieved the requested
information, I joined the ever-growing group that was standing in the dark
along the roadside.
The reality of the situation hit me when I saw the car. Front end was smashed, hood was smashed, and
the windshield was completely shattered.
There were chunks of hide and blood hanging in the glass. The realization how close this man and his
friend had come to serious injury shook me, and my anger over the cow abated. I would deal with that later. Once the Good Samaritan realized there was
nothing he could do further, he left.
Mike and I remained, standing outside with the man, his girlfriend who
had been in the car with him at the time of the accident, and a friend who had
come to pick them up. They were leaving
their car overnight, after getting permission from the Trooper and our
neighbor. They were very worried that
someone would steal their gas and had decided to siphon the gas out of the tank
to take home with them. I tried to
assure them that their car would be safe, that our big dog (who was still going
crazy) would alert us if anyone was there, and I couldn’t imagine that anyone would
steal the gas under these conditions.
But to no avail. They weren’t
taking any chances. I gave the couple
the information they needed to contact the owner of the escaped cattle. We wished them well and made our way back to
the house. We had been standing out in
the bitter cold for over an hour, my hips aching, and my back was in
spasms.
Once inside, I put a warning on Facebook for any locals who might
be traveling our road and prayed no one else would hit a cow and be injured or
worse. I’m afraid I was very agitated
and short about the whole situation and I didn’t rest well at all.
The couple who had hit the cow were going to try to contact the
owners and there was really nothing that I could do to help. I decided to let the whole incident with the
Trooper rest as well. He’s not the first
person to be clueless about handling cattle, and did I really expect him to
creep along patiently behind her without his lights flashing? I mean, the last time when the Sheriff’s
department came out, the two deputies didn’t know the difference between cows
and bulls and were terrified of the animals.
I made a mental note that rural law enforcement really should be
required to take a basic course in animal behavior. I smiled ruefully to myself at THAT
thought. It would never happen.
Midafternoon, Mike came through the door with a look on his face
that told me something was wrong. There
were tracks in the snow where the runaway cow had gone behind Mike’s new truck.
When Mike followed the tracks, he learned that she had broken out the taillight
and the whole assembly would have to replaced.
Great. Now this was our problem
again. We could let it go, fix the truck
ourselves (probably about a thousand dollars’ worth of damage) and move forward. Or, we could hold the repeatedly negligent
owner of the cattle responsible.
The sight of that damaged car and just how close that couple came
to serious injury still fresh in my head, a quick discussion with Mike, and I
was on the phone trying to get in touch with the owner of the ranch. Here’s the rub. These cattle are left on what is probably
several hundred acres of mountain land that is split from our property on one
side by a rural, narrow, gravel road. They
have no shelter, they seem to forage all winter long for their food, and to our
knowledge, no one checks on them. They
don’t look underconditioned or unhealthy with their being Longhorn cattle. Longhorns hold up fairly well even under the
worst conditions. However, with the
recent snow and ice that we have had, these animals have not been able to get access
to the grass. Their need for food is
most likely what compelled them to leave the property.
Plenty of rumors surround this absent landlord. I’ve heard them all. I am aware that what we don’t know as humans,
we typically imagine. I am also aware
that once something is mentioned, the story grows exponentially. So, this absent landlord has grown to be
uncaring, unmindful, and even vicious and criminal in some of the stories
told. Perhaps these local stories are
just the result of fabling minds and maybe the landlord is not really the big,
ugly ogre living high above the clouds. It
appears that he is absent, unresponsive, and negligent. I cannot say.
I do know that there is an underlying fear of him by some, and a great
distaste by others. So, I decided the
right thing to do is to give him a chance to prove us all wrong. Perhaps, if I could reach him, he would prove
to be something other than what the community imagines of him. I called, left a respectful message on his
voicemail, and ask him to call me. He
did not return my call. You know the saying “take the bull by the horns”? It seems more than tongue in cheek in this
situation. After repeated efforts over two days to contact the owner by phone, I
am traveling the 45 minutes to this man’s place of business. It will be much harder to dismiss someone who
shows up in person.
January 21, 2022
Wouldn’t it be comforting to know that our greatest desires, our
deepest grief, and all our misunderstandings are somehow miraculously
transformed into a beautiful prayer in the ears of the Spirit? The unspoken, incommunicable, desperate,
impossible longings of a human heart, are they not prayer in its purest
form? The guttural sobs, the manic
screams, the days of silence, they too are prayers; I am sure.
The answers we seek do not often return to us in the manner we
would like. I don’t see Jesus raising
anyone from the dead these days, and grief doesn’t just disappear with time. The
prophets don’t meet us on the Mountain of Transfiguration, our leprous skin
isn’t miraculously cured, the scales that blind us don’t fall from our eyes, our
lame do not walk again, and our loaves
and fishes aren’t multiplied. When that doesn’t happen, we are sure there is no
God. Or, if there is, we are sure our
deepest desires are of no consequence to the Divine. Maybe we need to refocus
and realize that subtle miracles are still miracles and though they might be
harder to recognize, they too are gifts of love. Sun and shadows, crocus blooming in snow, a hooded
warbler faithful to return each spring, a juvenile owl meeting to chat at dusk,
new life on the farm, ice hanging from the roots along the water’s edge, pileated
woodpeckers tapping out a rhythm, these are all gifts to a broken heart. Though I often find that God cares for me
through what I find in the natural world around me, this week I felt loved
through the unlikely chance finding of a cassette tape that had being lying
tucked away and forgotten for 47 years.
I was cleaning house and quickly made decision to stash some
seasonal glassware in an old trunk. Most
of the trunk’s contents had been discarded several years ago when I went
through the contents, half a century of neglect having turned the stored,
physical mementos into decay. I started
to just put the glassware in on top of the remaining items stored there but
another split-second decision left me sorting through the remains.
Look! These photos! Oh, my
heart!
I knew there were old photos in the trunk, but I didn’t remember that
photos of the snow adventure I had with my parents were packed away in the
trunk. I wrote of that event last week. I vividly remember my mom and dad and the dog
and the laughter in the snow. I
remembered the big snowball on which we stood and the igloo that was big enough
for an adult and a child to be inside it together. I didn’t remember how old I was, if my baby brother
had been born, or if my grandparents were there. The pictures I found brought back
details. The events of that day quickly
came together as I looked at the fading photos.
The time outdoors building the igloo, playing with the dog, rolling the
massive snowball, and laughing with my parents had been a time the three of us
had shared. Jimmy, my brother, born in late October was still an infant,
perhaps three months of age. My
grandparents had stayed indoors with him while my parents played outdoors with
me and then they had dressed and come out to join us, taking pictures to
memorialize the day. As I looked at the
photos, I remembered how I had spoken aloud last week, expressing my gratitude
to my mother for taking the time to play with me in the snow so many years ago.
I ended my journal entry with the sentiment “I hope she heard me”, an intense
longing, the cry of a heart, and perhaps some sort of prayer in it’s purest
form.
I dug a little further, pushing items to the side so that I could
set the glassware on the bottom of the trunk.
Wait. What’s this? I picked up a cassette tape. It didn’t
interest me. It was a tape of someone
reciting the same Bible verses over and over again in an effort to memorize
them. I grabbed up the rest of the tapes
and put them aside. I was busy cleaning,
working, and had already taken time out to look at photos, so I didn’t return
to the tapes until later. One of them
had my grandma’s handwriting on it. I
just happened to have a cassette player and I put the tape in so I could listen
while I worked in the kitchen. For an
hour I listened to my grandparents taking turns and talking on the tape. They were replying to cassette tapes my
parents had sent to them, as they now lived in Alaska. This was the early 1970’s. In
this day of instant communications, we sometimes fail to remember how long we
had to go without hearing the voice of our loved ones back in the early
1970’s. What a joy it must have been for
my parents and grandparents to exchange these tapes. As I listened to my grandmother read a story,
sing songs to my brother and I, and share day to day events of life in Alaska I
wondered if the additional tapes I had found were the tapes my parents had
mailed to them. I heard my grandpa
reflect on things my parents had said and ask questions of them and I hoped I
had the missing tapes in hand so that I could hear both sides of the
conversation. My grandma made mention of
the fact their tape would be less natural than the ones my parents made but I
didn’t yet know what she meant.
After listening to the tape from my grandparents, I didn’t have
time to pop in another one. It had to
wait until another day. Half distracted
with things on my to-do list the next day, I thought I would listen to another
tape while I worked. It was full of
background noise, hard to understand, and I was under impressed. I wasn’t sure who was even talking on the
tape. I waited a few minutes and when
things didn’t improve, I took it out. I
put in another one. It was a preacher at
an old-fashioned revival, no doubt taped in the seventies. The quality of the tape was poor. I
periodically used the fast forward and made sure nothing of importance was
hidden somewhere on the tape, then I threw it in the trash. Finished with that one I started
another. Preaching tape number two. I remembered the name of the evangelist. The quality of the tape was poor, lots of
background noise, the preacher standing a bit away from the mike that no doubt
had been just put down somewhere in the proximity of the podium. His voice was rising as he tried to convince
folks of their need for salvation so they wouldn’t burn in hell. I wondered once again why so many of the
preachers from my childhood felt the need to try to scare people into a
relationship with Jesus rather than allow love to draw them to him? I knew these types of preachers. I grew up under that type of religious
background. It didn’t give me a good
feeling hearing the tape. Today was not
the day I wanted to dissect my thoughts on this subject. Fast forward.
More preaching. Fast
forward. Still more. Flipped tape over. More of the same. Both preaching tapes went in the trash. I sighed.
I would try one more tape before giving up for the day. The tape of my grandparents had been a
treasure, but so far, the rest of them, a bust.
I wondered why anyone had bothered to keep them.
The last tape I listened to was a little easier to understand,
although still full of background noise and multiple people talking over one
another at times. This time, however, I
recognized voices. I could piece the
conversation together and create a mental picture. My Georgia family was hosting my visiting
parents who now lived in MIssouri. I
could make out the voice of my Aunt Mona, distinctive and a bit louder than all
the other voices. And there was Uncle
Dalmous’ infectious laugh. I listened
closely. There was one voice I wanted to
hear. Would I?
That longing.
That silent prayer that I hadn’t dare recognize as a prayer. We as humans have learned not to pray for the
impossible. That would be silly.
I strained my ears, leaning
closer to the cassette player, trying to dissect the conversation, discern the
voices and listening with bated breath for the voice of my mother.
Forty-seven years had left
me no longer remembering the sound of her voice.
I don’t recall her ever,
ever raising her voice at me the entire seven years she raised me. I recall her voice being gentle, loving,
kind, patient but I didn’t’ remember what she sounded like.
The intensity of my emotions was so great at this point, and the
longing so intense that I had to turn the cassette tape off and release some
tears. Cautiously, a few minutes later,
I resumed play.
The rest of the world had stopped.
I was glued, straining, waiting, listening intently for something that
would help me know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was my mother’s
voice. And then, there it was.
My mother was talking about me.
She was telling my Aunt Mona how I didn’t approve of the artificial
Christmas tree they had put up that year and had expressed my disappointment
over not having a live tree.
I held my breath; afraid I would miss something.
Her voice was deeper than I remembered it and with the distinct,
North Georgia Mountain accent of my other relatives. That
surprised me, although it shouldn’t have.
I had expected her voice to sound more like Nan (her mother).
Off went the tape. Down
came the tears. I proceeded to listen to
the rest of the tape in this manner.
Each time I heard my mother’s voice the intensity of my emotions would
cause me to shut down the tape and just savor the moment, taking each word deep
into my soul, wrapping my heart around it, and accepting the healing it
brought. There wasn’t anything deep or
profound expressed I that cassette tape.
It was just a loving family gathered together and having random
conversation. There were cousins talking
over one another, the occasional fuss of a Little Person, loud laughter,
scolding parents, adoring Aunts and Uncles, toys being scraped across the
floor, the clatter of dishes………….beautiful sounds of everyday life when people
don’t realize that the world they know it will soon come to an end when death
robs them of someone they love.
I wondered at the timing, after so many years of needing to hear
her voice, why now? Why did I never explore those tapes previously? Why did my dad never tell me the trunk
contained those treasures? Why had my
grandmother never mentioned them or shared them with me? Why now?
Why when I had needed her all these years did I not know that my
mother’s voice was there on those cassettes waiting to be discovered?
Faith believes that we receive at just the
right time, when our hearts our open and our spirits can receive the gift.
January 22, 2022
To return to the ongoing saga of the Texas longhorns and their
absent landlords, I must record yesterday’s adventures. Two days of trying to reach someone regarding
the escaping cattle and subsequent damages, had left me feeling like I needed
to try a different approach. I had to
make a trip to Mt. Airy to have some blood drawn for my annual checkup and we
would be close to the place of business owned by the family who also owned the
ranch next to us. I told Mike that I
wanted to stop and put a little pressure on them to see me in person since my
phone calls were not making an impact. I
had a plan to approach them with confidence that if I could get through to
them, they would WANT to do the right thing despite any rumors I had
heard. I would be respectful, my plan of
action well-rehearsed, and if they didn’t want to engage with me, I would know
I had done everything I could to reach out to them. I texted my siblings for support. They get me.
All four of us to some degree hold our privacy and reclusiveness dear
but aren’t afraid to take on a battle in which we are invested. We are just particular about our
battles. I think we inherited that from
our dad who will go to great lengths to avoid a conflict but when backed in a
corner, isn’t afraid to come out fighting.
Since the pandemic, my siblings and I have had an ongoing group text
that we update randomly. We might not message
for days or weeks and then we might spend an hour a day corresponding several
days in a row. It’s a sweet consequence
of an otherwise isolating period in history.
I think we work harder to connect knowing how precious it is.
On the way to Mt. Airy, Mike asked me what order I had in mind for
the day’s events. I told him I wanted to try to meet with man who owned the
cattle first. We were probably 15
minutes out when a call came through on my cell phone. Cell phone service is hit and miss in the
mountains. I looked at the number and it
was a North Carolina call. I asked Mike
to pull over as soon as he was able to safely do so as I thought this might be
the owner of the Longhorn cattle calling me back finally. I was surprised when I answered, and a woman
addressed me and told me that her son had given her the message to call
me. She waited for me to fill her
in. For a second, when she cut me off
and indicated what happened on the road wasn’t any of my concern, I thought we
were not going to be able to have a working relationship and a constructive
conversation. I responded with
respectful firmness that while her dealings with young man whose care was
totaled was none of my business, the fact the cattle were often off the
property and put the community at large at risk of injury or even death, I did
consider my concern. I also reminded her
that her cattle had been on our property on two occasions and this time had
done damage. From that moment forward, our conversation was constructive and
pleasant. In fact, I instantly liked
her, her strength and the apparent fairness she was portraying to make things
right. We had several conversations over
the next few hours as we worked toward getting the information to her she
needed and my admiration for her grew.
She gave me her personal cell phone number when I pressed her so that I
have a contact in case the animals get out again. She said they would address the fences in
need of repair, assured me they have someone locally who works for them and who
would feed the cattle and keep an eye on them.
When we passed the ranch, I saw hay out for the cattle and tracks where
a tractor had been there. I can’t make
excuses for the past, for any unpleasant encounters anyone else has had, or for
any negligence on their part to return calls or pick up in a timely manner any animals
who have escaped in the past. All I can
do, all any of us can do, is work towards establishing working relationships
with people and meet them where they are now.
Sometimes, listening to the experience of others will keep us from
trying and we need to set those second and third hand encounters aside and reach
out ourselves.
January 23, 2022
What a week this has been!
Nothing about it has been routine or ordinary. The snow that fell last Sunday remains on the
ground, our temperatures never getting warm enough to melt much of it. In fact, what has happened is that we have
had just enough dripping from the eaves and surface melting that when we have
the frigid temperatures at night, everything has frozen over with a thick upper
crust of ice. I have tried to walk Buddy
at least a tiny bit each day. Both of us
are missing our long walks together. Yesterday I could not even attempt to walk
him as I couldn’t safely get him off the bank in our back yard and down to a
level place without falling. I played
with him for a while, tossing his bowl and his ball, games he likes to play. He was disappointed when I didn’t get his
harness and walked away without taking him.
I was struggling just to remain upright enough to walk on the driveway
and to the barn.
I haven’t been able to get
to the Back 40 to check on the animals on our daily walks, so Mike has been
taking the ATV to check on them and make sure they have food and water. We have not had any more issues with the
watering trough, thankfully, and we have not bothered to separate the two herds
that got together. It has been easier on
Mike to let them all feed from the wagon feeder instead of carrying small
squares to Flash’s herd. I don’t like
the idea of the miniature heifers so far away where I can’t keep an eye on
them, but we just have no choice at this point.
Despite our wonderful barn, we just can’t have all the animals in one
group due to some of them being kept from the bulls and the fact that we have
two bulls and two distinct herds to maintain.
So, we are doing the best we can under these conditions. As I look around me, I realize our cattle are
spoiled but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Most cattle don’t’ have shelters and we wonder if some of the
neighboring cattle in our area are even being fed properly in this weather. Mike even worked recently with a farmer whose
cattle were being fed hay that wasn’t giving them the nutritional value they
need for this kind of weather. The
cattle were suffering physically because of it.
You can’t just take over and tell people that, especially people who
have been farming all their lives This is a hard winter on cattle, especially
if folks don’t have quality hay or are not feeding it free choice to the
animals. It takes additional efforts to
keep animals healthy in these conditions.
********************************
There have been very few times in the last fifteen years that I
have had a plan with the dairy herd and been able to stick with in such a
manner that it works out exactly as I had wished. When you work with living beings, there’s
always some sort of a surprise it seems that throws a monkey wrench in things
and many times, Mike and I have sabotaged ourselves. For instance, I will plan breedings and have
a designated time when I am going to dry all my cows and take a break. Then, I will have one cow that doesn’t settle
until later, throwing everything off and making it necessary for me to milk
that one cow while the rest are dry. Or,
we will have all the cows ready to dry off at the same time and we buy another
cow in milk that is off schedule. This
year, I planned to keep the fall calves on their dams through January and
February to avoid having to deal with milking twice a day during the worst of
winter. For once, things have worked out
for well in that regard. The calves, who
are four months old have been taking all of the milk the past few weeks. I am checking the cows every day and keeping
a proper eye on their udders. I also
bring them in and get enough milk for Mike and I for drinking and cooking, but
that doesn’t require milking every day.
I couldn’t do this when I was providing milk for share customers because
I needed additional milk for them. With
my not providing milk for any customers this year, it has given me a lot of
flexibility and it’s such a relief. We
did run into a bit of a snag. I noticed
that Ginger had a lot of milk one day and we brought her into the parlor and
put the milking machine on her. She
started kicking which isn’t like her.
When we strained the milk, we realized it had blood in it. It was the type of pink milk that indicates
some capillaries had been busted in her udder.
This is not an uncommon occurrence right after a cow calves, but she is
far enough into her lactation that it indicated she had most likely had a bit
of trauma to her udder to cause the blood.
We couldn’t find any outward signs of trauma but because she was keeping
the calf away from the area that was sore and only allowing him to nurse on one
side, we needed to keep her milked out.
We milked her consistently for several days in a row and then the milk
cleared up and she immediately went back to allowing her calf to nurse all four
quarters. This is a good example of why
it is so important for those who share milk with their calves to do a daily
check of each cow’s udder and monitor what is happening. Had we not been on top of it, she probably
would have developed mastitis in the quarters that were not being nursed. I have been especially thankful with the
extreme cold and the snow and ice on the ground that we have not had to stick
to a daily milking schedule and have had a few weeks reprieve. It has given me time to concentrate on other
things. Soon, I will be weaning the
calves and it will be necessary to consistently milk every day until I am ready
to dry off the cows.
***********************
Before I close out my journal for this week, in order to
give an accurate account of the week’s events, I must include the chimney fire,
as if this past week wasn’t a roller coaster of events and emotions already. Our coldest night so far this winter and Mike
had the wood stove working hard. It was
late and Mike and I were actually headed to bed at the same time for a
change. He went downstairs to put more
wood in the fire before we retired. I
heard the familiar bangings and clangings of wood being put into the stove and
then I heard the tone of Mike’s voice although not his words and knew something
was wrong. The chimney flu had caught on
fire. Of course, my anxiety immediately
went through the roof and I started gathering things to take out the door with
me if we needed to evacuate including a pile of winter clothes to keep us warm
in the severe cold. Mike wouldn’t let me
call 911 yet. He said the fire was
contained in the chimney and he would monitor it and hope that it burned itself
out. He went outside and soaked the roof
around the chimney, a tough job on a bitter cold night. We watched for signs of the walls getting hot
or any indication that the fire was escaping the chimney. As time went on and
the fire continued to burn in the chimney, I started straightening the
house. I couldn’t sit still and by golly
if the house might burn down, at least it would be in order! (I clean when I am nervous.) Mike kept trying to reassure me but he kept
running downstairs to check the chimney and outside to check the chimney and
squirting water around the chimney. Finally,
what seemed like several hours later he told me everything was under control,
the fire was out, and I could go to bed, but he was going to sit up to keep an
eye on things for a while. I went to bed
exhausted and slept.