Chapter Four --- "Neighboring - Farm Style"

It seems like the more technology we have, the more isolated we become.   On one hand, independence is great.  On the other hand, we’re losing something irreplaceable: The art of neighboring.  However, there are still some places and cultures in the world where life is a little slower and neighbors really get to know each other.  Not so far away, and not so long ago, I learned some lessons about neighboring.  I found that among farmers there is a loose form of interdependency – one that brings rewards of friendship and knowledge.

All the frenzy of activity during our move to Gallipolis, had now settled into a daily routine of life close to the earth.  This was such a pleasant time of year, with new birth surrounding us on every side.  Honeysuckle vines filled the air with a sweet perfume, second only to the fragrance of the abundant honey-locust trees lining our driveway.  The sweet scent of spring was almost heaven.

It was late May, and I could tell it was going to be a warm day as I finished scraping the free-stall barn. The aged Ford tractor putted along the alley between the rows of stalls, and a wave of liquid muck rushed along behind me, chased by the blade.  I was having fun, and getting paid to do it.  It had only been a few weeks since moving, and happy thoughts of our life on the farm were floating through my head.  I was satisfied that this was the life I had been born for.  The work was so different than my previous employment.  This didn’t seem like a job at all.

I parked the tractor in the machinery shed when the job was completed, and walked back to the barn to mix the calf grain.  About that time the milk-house phone began ringing.

I answered it, and heard a deep familiar voice on the other end of the line.  My eyes grew wide at his words, and I couldn’t help exclaiming, “You need help doing WHAT!?”  

So Cousin Jay explained it again. “I’ve got a cow down here with a prolapsed uterus and I need some help to stuff it back in.  It’s gonna take two of us to do it.  Do you have time?”

I wasn’t so sure I was up to the task.  This seemed like a job for a vet, but I was quickly learning that farm life was one of unpredictability -- oft-times requiring spur-of-the-moment ingenuity.

“Sure, I’ll be right there.”   I quickly walked back to the house and climbed into my old beater pickup truck.

Only a half mile down the road, I steered into the long dirt lane of the Butler Hereford Farm where Jay managed a herd of prized registered bulls.  I pulled up to the house just as my heavily-muscled cousin came out carrying a large pan of disinfectant water and a small tool tray.

“She’s right over here,” he nodded toward a small three-sided shed by the edge of the pasture.  We walked over to the building and I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“There is no way were gonna shove that back in,” I thought out loud.

Jay let out his deep staccato laughter, “Oh yeah we are.  Come on.”

“But…. but it’s huge!”  I could barely grasp the sight before me.

Nearly as large as a newborn calf, this pink and purple blob of flesh stretched out behind a very miserable-looking cow like a giant inflated sock turned inside out.  She was obviously tired of the whole mess, and just lay there forlornly awaiting her fate.

“How in the world did it happen?” I couldn’t help asking the question.

“Well, sometimes these critters don’t know when to stop pushing after they give birth, and they just blow out the whole shootin’ match.  She gave me a nice bull calf a couple hours ago.  Come on; let’s lift her hind quarters up a little.”

Jay set his pan and tray down, and we attached the hip clamp to the heifer’s rear end.  Then he tied a rope to the clamp and threw it up over a beam.  With a couple mighty heaves we were able to raise her rear up a few inches so gravity could assist us with the next step – a process that appeared hopeless in my humble estimation.

“Now let’s wash her up,” Jay continued.   

We slid the pan of betadine water under the blob of flesh and attempted to sponge off the dirt.  I figured at best, the cow was doomed to get a terrible infection.

“Are you ready?” Jay gave me an apologetic grin; “This could be a little messy.”

“I guess so.”  I spoke with uncertainty.  But a hundred thoughts were racing through my head.  Not long ago I had been pushing a pencil for a living.  Now I was getting ready to push a pile of living flesh into the back end of an animal.  I laughed at the absurdity of it all.

“Get down here beside me,” Jay was already on his knees and starting to push on the mass.  I quickly dropped down and joined him.  For a few seconds it seemed like it might not be so difficult after all.  But that’s when reality set it.  The startled cow gave a bellow and started pushing right back at us.

“She doesn’t want it back!”  I shouted incredulously.

Jay was patient with me. “We’re gonna have to work fast.  She’ll keep pushing against us, but we have to get it back in, between the pushes.”

“Well how in the world are we going to keep it in there!?”

“I’m gonna sew her shut.”

Another big surprise!  How’s she gonna pee, I was thinking, but no time to worry about it.  With sweat beginning to run down our faces, we strained and pushed, and the cow kept pushing right back against us.  For a while it seemed like a losing battle, but every time she pushed, we dug our toes in and held on.  Then each time she rested for a few seconds, we gained some ground.  And then amazingly, it was all in.

“Now hold it in there while I get the needle ready.”  Jay quickly grabbed for the sutures, and I had no choice but to comply.  Again I mused at the seeming ridiculousness of it all.  ‘I’ve got my face against a cow’s rear end, and my arm where I never thought it would be.   How did I end up here!?’  

“Okay, quick, pull your arm out and hold her together.”  Jay instructed.

I did, and he quickly plunged the needle and heavy nylon string through the flap of skin where the calf had passed through.  Just as quickly he went through the flap on the other side.  Two more loose loops like that, a knot to fasten the ends together, and the job was done.  Now I understood.

We rose stiffly to our feet and released the hip clamp.  Ah, but success was sweet.  The weary cow still had a concerned look on her face, but obviously rested more comfortably now.   

“I think we’ll just keep her here in the shed a few days to see how she does.  I’ll let her rest for a half-hour or so, then I’m gonna put the calf on her.  That’ll cheer her up.”

“You know Jay,” I spoke with admiration in my voice, “I wasn’t sure we could pull it off, but you made a believer out of me.”

“I couldn’t have done it without your help.”

“Where did you learn how to do that.”

“I watched the vet do it once.”

“This was your first time!!?”

“Yeah,” he laughed, “first time for everything.  Let’s go to the house - Donna’s got the coffee on.”

Hereford cow and calf.

This wasn’t the last time Jay surprised me with his knowledge as a herdsman.  I suppose he called the vet once in awhile, but most procedures he had learned to do himself.  I guess it shouldn’t have seemed so strange, because it was becoming common for both beef and dairy farmers to do much of their own vet work.  Economics was the driving force.  There simply wasn’t enough profit margin to manage a herd any other way.  Artificial insemination was a practice that many herdsmen were learning, and Jay was no exception.  It might seem a little strange to do such a thing on a farm where bulls were abundant, but the fact is, to improve the herd and get top-notch bulls to sell, they had to breed the cows artificially.  Frozen straws of semen from high-quality bulls were purchased and stored in liquid nitrogen until a cow was observed to be in heat.  This was a way to get good calves from prize bulls that no one could afford to keep on their own.

I think the most delicate procedure that Jay taught me, was how to treat bovine pink eye.  This was a fairly common disease among cattle in late summer, and it was thought that flies spread it.  If left alone, a cow could go blind.  In the early stages, it wasn’t that noticeable, but as it progressed, the center of a cow’s eye would turn into a big pink blister – easily discernable, and terribly painful.

We were having some trouble with pink eye one summer, and were treating the cows with the common method of topical antibiotics.  It wasn’t very effective, and the cows didn’t care for the daily smear in their eye.  I mentioned the problem to Jay.  

“Dave,” he said, “I’ve learned the best way to cure pink eye, and one treatment will do it every time.”

“I’m all ears, Jay.”

“You inject the eyes with penicillin.”

“Right in the eyeball!?

“Yeah, you want me to show you?”

“Sure! Can you help me with one this evening?”

“I’ll be down right after supper.”

Later that evening Jay drove to our dairy and brought along a tiny syringe with a very thin needle.  

“Now we gotta get the cow in the work chute, and tie her head back,” he said.

So we steered the affected cow into the chute, caught her nostrils with the nose clamp, and pulled her head back around until she was almost facing backwards.  It was an odd position, but when a cow gets her head pulled back like that, it makes them roll their eyes down, exposing the white.  Now Jay moved in for the shot.  As I watched over his shoulder, he very carefully slid the needle under the transparent layer that covers the white of the eye.  Then he slowly pushed the plunger, inserting 2 CC’s of penicillin - forming what looked like a pea-sized yellow blister on top of the eye.  My stomach took a lurch at the sight.  There was no way that I could do that!  Maybe I could just call Jay from now on.  He wouldn’t mind.

But he interrupted my thoughts, “Okay Dave, there ya go.  You can have the other eye.”

“N….no…..no, Jay, that’s alright, you go ahead.” I was quaking at the thought.

Jay chuckled, and in his deepest, firmest voice repeated, “No Dave, I’m not gonna do it………YOU are!”

I paused for a second, trying to gather up some courage, and stared at the rugged farmer standing beside me.  It was obvious that after all he had been through up to this point in his life, that he had truly found his niche.  My mind searched desperately for words to convince him that I really could not do this.  But his expression told me there would be no arguing, and his outstretched hand held the syringe patiently.  So I swallowed hard and reached out with trembling fingers while my quivering stomach threatened to empty itself.  I turned around to face the cow, and my arm stopped in mid air, as if held back by an invisible wall. “I can’t do it!  I’ll poke her eye out!”

Jay laid his powerful calloused hand gently on my shoulder, and his voice rumbled calmly behind my ear. “You got it Dave, it’s not hard.  Just move slowly, and be ready to pull back quickly if the cow moves."

So taking a deep breath, I reached forward, carefully slipped the tip of the needle under the membrane, and pushed in the penicillin – completely surprised at how Jay’s confidence had settled my nerves.

“There now Dave, that wasn’t so bad was it?”  He had to rub it in a little.

“I’m glad you made me do it Jay, but I’m feeling kinda sick.”

He slapped me on the shoulder with a booming laugh, “Ah, you’ll get over it.  I gotta run now.  See ya later.”

Then he headed to his truck as I released the cow.  

“Remember,” he called back over his shoulder, “2 CC’s”.

Next week:  “Visitors in the Night.”