The cardinal rule of having cows as neighbors

I was driving the kids to school one rainy morning and slammed on the brakes halfway down the driveway, “KIDS. Look at that cow, she is going to have a baby.”

There was a cow laying in the field alongside our drive, her belly was super huge and I could see her taking breaths. “Wow I can even see her contractions, guys!”

Unanimous squealing erupted along with, “this is so exciting! I bet when we get home she’ll have had it, we can name it! I bet she’ll bring her baby back to this spot all the time and say, ‘right here is where I had you.'”

We set off for school in a joyous cloud of baby calf euphoria.

Y’all I have bad news because that cow was NOT in labor. She was dying before our very eyes.

A few hours later I returned home and the cow was still laying there, big belly in the air, puffing away. There were no other cows around, which was strange because usually when a baby is coming, there’s a circle of support cows. I started googling ‘how long does cow labor last’ and ‘do cows lay on their sides to have babies.’

I then broke Hub’s Cardinal Rule of Living Near Cows That Do Not Belong to Us: I contacted the farmers.

I take my role as neighbor to a farmer very seriously. I’ve been known to take video of a cow limping and then ask Hubs if I can call the farmers. Ever since that time I woke everybody up to tell them a cow was having a baby (turns out this is normal and they do it all the time) I’ve been banned from further cow updates.

But apparently cows are in labor for 7-12 hours and by my math we were smack in the middle of that window and I wasn’t seeing much progress. If a baby cow needs to be rescued, I Am Here For It. So I sent her a picture and a text asking if the cow was having a baby and I thought she needed to be checked on.

Yeah, turns out I was right, because A) she was not having a baby and B) she was dying from eating too much lush grass. This is not the first time we’ve lost a cow to this strange ailment. So the farmers came and checked on her and I texted them a bit later asking if she was okay and was told “no. she wasn’t having a baby, she was dying.” To which I said, “oh shoot.”

Which was unintentionally a very literal response because now I know why farmers carry shotguns on the backs of their Gators.

I then had a slight freak out as I got in the car to get the kids from school because what if that cow was laying there dead? Or worse, what if she was laying there with a huge hole in her head and here my kids are expecting a new baby that they’re going to name Moo-sey Jr.

Fortunately, the cow was not there. I don’t know where she went, but I’m grateful. Also fortunately, the kids completely forgot! Actually, the eldest remembered later in the day and I quickly explained the situation and told her not to remind the littles. Long and short of it, bullet dodged, for me at least.

In other news: my bike training is going really well…

Just kidding. That’s totally my youngest kid who has spent 5 years rejecting any form of bike coaching. Then just the other day she pulls it out on her own and pedals away in her high heeled church boots. When questioned how she learned so quickly she said, “I decided I wanted to.”

Ain’t that the truth. Two days later she’s holding an umbrella, riding and singing in some delightful mash up of ‘Singing in the Rain’ and ‘I Want to Ride My Bicycle’ and surely ‘Mary Poppins.’

When I asked Hubs if he witnessed it he said, “yes, that was amazing and that umbrella is now broken.”

Classic.