As I walked into the bathroom on the dairy, I was once again struck by the smell. Not necessarily a bad smell, but kind of a sweet musty smell. When I was a kid, there was a bathroom at my Grandpa Barney’s house that smelled exactly the same way. So every time I enter the bathroom at this dairy, I’m reminded of my grandpa.
My Grandpa had a little bit of a mischievous streak. Which is probably where I got it from, and through me has been passed to my kids. Last night my son had gotten out of bed about 9:30, found me and said, “Dad, we need to play an April Fool’s prank on Mommy.” So I’d shown him how to put a rubber band around the sprayer on the kitchen sink, and sent him back to bed. (He was proud to report to me today that he had gotten his grandmother (my mother in law) twice, and his mother once by using this trick). I was proud, I think Grandpa Barney would be proud too.
The reason for needing to be in the bathroom was that the dairy had a cow in labor that was unable to rise. We’d tried treating the cow with numerous medications to get her up. But nothing had worked. I suspected that what was going on, was that she had twins inside her, and was suffering from a condition known as pregnancy toxemia (basically the calves growing inside her Uterus, are consuming more energy than she has available). A fundamental part of treating this condition is to get the calves out, to stop the energy drain. I’d been laying on my back attempting to deliver the calf, but making very little progress. I’d twisted and contorted my body in every way imaginable, trying to accomplish this. It looked like I was in an advanced yoga class. I’d done the bridge, the cobra, and the lotus, all with one arm buried shoulder deep in this cow. I was now in the middle of the downward dog, when the cow started straining. With this straining, she had sent a stream of manure directly under the collar of my shirt, and down my neck and back.
Thus the trip to the bathroom to clean up prior to performing an emergency C-section. The C-section had gone very well, and just as I’d suspected there had been twins. Even better, they were both alive, and both heifers.
This particular dairy sits near several lakes, and with some tall cottonwoods growing on the place is home to some nesting bald eagles. One of which had been circling overhead, and observing the show down below.
I was just cleaning up and getting back in my truck. When the Eagle dropped a surprise package. I was dumbfounded at how much material a bald eagle can crap at one time. It painted my blue truck with pancake size white polka dots, and additionally dropped some more of this material inside my collar and down the back of my neck.
I don’t think I’ve ever experienced being crapped on, down the back of my neck before, and certainly not by a bald eagle, and now it has happened twice in the space of an hour.
So it’s back to the bathroom, with the smell that reminds me of Grandpa. In the bathroom I have a little talk with my Grandpa Barney. “I take it with those angel wings of yours you have a little pull with others with wings? Well, you got me Grandpa. Happy April Fool’s day.”