Category: Animals and farming

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Good horse, good truck

Last week we had to evacuate because of a wildfire less than a mile from our property. I’ve played out — and dreaded — this scenario in my mind dozens of times and now it had arrived. But it was not as I had imagined before — now I had cows.

I was alone at the time. Dozens of channels in my mind alerted at once. The animals! Paperwork and keepsakes in the house! Where will we go? The animals! How long do I have? The livestock trailers! The animals!

I hooked up our good truck to my big horse trailer. I collected my horses from where they were grazing at pasture. All the time I was panicking about everything I was not doing.

I went to hook up our beat up old farm truck to my smaller, older horse trailer, but found I had been softened and weakened by the advent of backup cameras. In my increasing panic and with lack of practice, I could not connect the old truck to the old trailer without another set of eyes. Luckily, my neighbor was able to come help guide me in.

Then she helped me load the cows in the smaller trailer. Cows are not like horses; they are somewhat trained to lead with a halter, but only somewhat. And they are not accustomed to trailer rides. With a great deal of encouragement, we got mama and the two calves into the trailer and closed the door.

Next we caught the chickens. One by one we accosted them, as they grew more panicked at each of our tries. Somehow we got them all and shoved them in our old, plastic dog kennel and got the kennel hefted into the back of the truck.

Compared to the rest, loading my horses into their trailer was a dream. They were used to the procedure and cooperated smoothly.

I ran to the house and collected our box of legal papers, some underwear and socks, my expensive guitar, my dog’s bed. I snatched semi-randomly at whatever I could.

Finally, my husband arrived home. The dog and I drove off in one truck and trailer and he followed in the other. We headed to a friend’s place who offered shelter for the entire menagerie.

The fire never grew and was quickly contained. Our property was not touched. We reversed ourselves and got everyone back home the following morning.

Yesterday, when I brought the cow and horses in from grazing at pasture, the two calves were nowhere to be found. Mama called for them. I hiked a circuit where they should have been. Nothing. Mama kept calling. This was a scenario I had never pictured.

My first instinct was to saddle my horse and ride out with my lasso rope to find them. That would be the right and normal instinct if you were a cowboy. I’m not. I’ve flirted with cowboyism but never claimed to achieve it. Yet, I had a horse I could rely on, a lasso rope I could do something with, and confidence that together we could do what we needed to do.

In this case, the calves showed up before I could get saddled up, bawling at the gate to get back to mom. I patted my horse on the shoulder, infinitely grateful for what I knew he could have done for us.

It’s one thing to collect some livestock and make friends with them. It’s another to be prepared for the unexpected. That’s the rule of livestock, the unexpected. You can’t foresee every eventuality. You can’t practice all the things that will happen. All you can do is gain general skills and reliable equipment. Build good and mutually helpful relationships. Flirt with and practice whatever comes your way. I never know what I will need my truck or my horse to do, but I rest easier knowing that they will probably be up for it.

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The price of milk

I enjoy milking my cow. It’s very intimate sitting on my bucket, leaning my head against her massive side. I listen to her snuffle through the hay for the best bite, hear and feel her side-to-side chewing and then the great swallow. Her teats are warm and soft in my hands, leathery like I imagine elephant skin. The milk jets into the bucket, full of promise. I imagine I feel contentment rolling off her as she eats her breakfast and gets some relief of pressure with my gentle milking, so much less boisterous than the determined nursing of her calf that comes next.

Now there’s fresh milk in my kitchen. A lot of it. I’ve learned how to make yogurt, ice cream, butter, cottage cheese, hard cheese. Every milky thing we can dream of we have. It’s clean and rich and hasn’t given us a moment of discomfort or concern.

My cow is sweet, the milk is sweet. It’s a lovely cycle.

So how do I reconcile the other side of this exchange? To keep in good milk, our cow has a calf every year. The traditional thing to do is butcher these calves after 12-18 months. A calf born, a calf killed, every year.

On a small spread like ours, you get up close and personal with the animals, the way I like it. By the time our current calves reach butchering age, I will have logged thousands of hours with them. Watching over their health, halter training them, scratching their heads, enjoying their playtime, observing their developing minds and bodies. And then I’m supposed to preside over their deaths.

The justifications are many:

  • These calves will have the best possible 18 months of life and the easiest deaths we can provide
  • As long as we consume any dairy products, we’re participating in this cycle, and it’s ethically cleaner to face up to it directly
  • By raising our own milk and meat and sharing it with several families, we are reducing the demand for the services of confined animal feeding operations, hellish places on many levels

Mama cow is grazing contentedly in the meadow. The calves pretend to eat grass, kick up their heels and run in aimless circles, butt their heads together, and return to mama’s side. The milk is sweet, the calves have 16 more months to live.

The justifications are many, and the heartache has yet to be plumbed.

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A primal exchange

I milk my cow.

I buy and bring her hay,

grain and special minerals.

I give her safety and a dry bed,

I leave her in her peace.

She lets me catch her, tie her,

grab her teats and squeeze them.

She lets me take her body’s product.

She sniffs and licks her calf,

nose to tail, shoulder to belly.

I don’t interfere,

She lets me look on.

To make a contract, you need:

An offer,

and acceptance.

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For Max, wherever you are

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I lost my cat.  They tell you not to let your cat out of the house when you move for at least two weeks because, as territorial creatures adverse to change, a cat will not understand that the new place is his home and will become hopelessly lost.  They also tell you that surrounding him with items from home at the new house will ease the transition.

I brought items from home.  I slept with extra t-shirts and towels for several days so they would be infused with my smell and I lined the cat carriers with them.  I bought new toys two weeks ahead of time so they would become familiar and I scattered them around the new house.  I got Xanax from the vet because our last move with the cats didn’t go that well.  Like they tell you, I kept the cats only in the new bedroom at first, allowing them to slowly acclimate to a limited territory.  I plugged in a very expensive diffuser of cat-friendly hormones as I tossed around the new toys.  I stayed with the cats, sitting in the bedroom with them for 20 hours to help ease their anxiety.

I was fully prepared to keep the cats indoors for two weeks, although I thought it might kill me.  My cats were outdoor cats, trotting off each day after breakfast to enjoy their wild territory, trotting back in at 5 for dinner every night.  Despite the pheromones and the drugs and the smelly t-shirts and the toys and my company, my cats weren’t adjusting well.  They howled all night long.  They traded off, one getting quiet for a while just as the other picked it up.  Cat howls are impossible to ignore or to sleep through.

The next day, they were mostly relaxed and quiet and snoozed in their comfy crates.  By dark, they wound themselves up again to howl all night a second time.

I love my cats.  I am sentimental and hopeless in my love for my animals.  But I thought about killing them.  I thought about giving them away or putting them to sleep.  I thought about a lot of ugly, ugly things around 3 am that second night, ruefully grateful that I did not have a colicy infant on my hands.

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The second morning, I arose around 5, in the dark.  There was no point to the whole bed thing.  I opened the front door to put an unwanted rug out on the stoop.  My husband made an inarticulate noise behind me and my boy cat Max shot out the door.  Into the pitch dark.  As I recoiled in horror, his sister Lily launched herself at the closed screen door and popped it open, running out into the yard.  Lily took one look around and came zooming back to the door, meowing wildly to get back in.  I have not seen Max again.

Fast forward.  As I write this, it is 37 days since I lost Max.  I have learned more about lost cats than I knew was possible to learn.  There are several websites and a very friendly chat group devoted to the behavior of cats when they are lost and tips for recovering them.  It turns out most cats will not set out to make an Incredible Journey to their old home.  Rather, they will immediately find a safe place to hide in their unfamiliar territory and go into super-stealth mode.  I read and was told that most cats will hide like this for weeks before they start venturing out again to look for food.  Deep in survival mode, overcome with their instincts, they will not come when you call, they will not come to the door, they will not meow and reveal their location, and they may well ignore all the tasty food you can offer.  I read and was told stories of cats lost in circumstances like ours who were not seen for weeks and even months and then suddenly reappeared, alive, strong and self-possessed.

So I have not given up on Max, I’ve been doing what they say to do.  I bought and borrowed live traps and set them in likely locations filled with tuna.  I spoke to my new neighbors, even the ones with the shuttered windows, no mailbox and no front door.  I hung my dirty clothes around the edges of the property to give it the smell of home.  When the traps were untouched (not even a raccoon???), I gave up and set up a feeding station and purchased an infrared motion-activated game camera to watch over it.  I searched in my neighbors’ barns and sheds and in the woods in back.  I kept refreshing the dirty laundry and put out fresh tuna every night.  No one ate the food I set out (not even a raccoon???) and no one appeared on my game camera, except for my dog and one magpie.

And I cried.  I sobbed so hard I thought I might be sick.  Often.  If you have lost pets,  and if you are in the least bit sentimental about them, you know the keen, eviscerating pain of their absence.  The bowl you’re not filling at dinner time, the special spot that is not being sat in.  The particular gesture and facial expression you are not seeing.

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The loss of Max coincided with the devastating loss of my home and the two were almost more than I could bear.  Organs vital to my existence had been torn away and, maybe worst of all, it was all my fault.  I moved us from home and I failed Max.  My husband feared for my mental health.  I did, too, but I was too busy hanging up dirty laundry and crying to care very much.

After four weeks, I had seen nothing to indicate that Max was nearby.  I was running out of things to do.  Don’t give up, my chat room people said, lots of people don’t see their cats for months and then they show up.  Keep trying, they said.

Then it snowed.  Just a little dusting.  I was sitting dully with my morning tea, empty eyes fixed on the window when I thought about tracks.  Tell-tale footprints in the snow.  I’m sorry, I said to my husband, I know you want me to get past this, but I need to try one more thing.  I need to look for footprints in the snow.  He agreed with me, and in fact he joined me.  I texted my neighbors to ask for permission to look for tracks on their properties.  My sweet neighbor Margo gave permission and decided to go out and look herself.

I saw some tracks.  I saw a few tracks that looked awfully like a cat in a couple of places around the edge of the property.  Husband saw a couple promising ones, too.  And then we heard from Margo.  She texted a photo of a clear line of what could be nothing but cat tracks winding around her house and patio.  No other cat had ever appeared in all my doings during the day or to eat my tuna or get its picture taken at night–if these really were cat tracks, they must be Max’s.

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We went into action.  Margo put out dishes of tuna along the route the tracks took.  We bought another game camera and set both up along the route.  And we waited.  Nothing.

Then the weather came in.  More snow and bone-chilling, unrelenting cold.  Those tracks haunted me–a solo cat searching for something in the dark.  Alone and facing devastating cold.  I turned one of the traps into a warm box by tying its door open, wrapping it in a waterproof sheet and filling it with towels and hay.  I set this along with more food and the camera near Margo’s door.  The snow came.  The cold.

Enough snow fell to discourage a small cat from walking very far.  It came with the kind of cold that must be able to take his ears or his toes.  There have been no new signs of Max for four days.

Don’t give up, the chat room people say.  Once some tiny kittens survived in a blizzard. They say a cat survived for more than a year alone in Vermont.  Cats are amazing, they say, he can survive.

I wish Max had been run over or eaten by a coyote.  Actually, I wish he was here with me right now, putting one of his arms across mine to make it hard to type, eyes mostly closed as the fire pops.  But if I knew he were dead, at least I would be able to mourn him and stop worrying and strategizing.  As it is, I cannot shake the image of him out there, stressed and cold and hungry.  Alone for the first time in his life.  I can’t stop wracking my brain for what else to do to help him survive and bring him back home.  I can’t stop abusing myself for failing to protect him and failing to rescue him.  For thinking such hateful thoughts about him hours before he disappeared.

They say I should hope, they say it will all work out.  Keep trying.  But don’t obsess, says Husband, don’t be so hard on yourself.  I listen and I try to do what they say.  Surely some day I will know where he is or I will figure out how to give up.  Some day I’ll feel at home again and Max may be with me, or not.  But that’s not today.

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