As the phone buzzed in my pocket, I silently slipped out of the back of Sunday School class to take the call in the foyer. A friend was sitting there, and overheard the whole thing.
“Doc, I’ve got a problem. One of my cows is in labor, I don’t know how long it’s been, but the feet are upside down, and they look dried out.”
“You don’t have anywhere to catch her?” I ask, already knowing the answer to this.
“No Doc, that’s part of the problem, and why I need your help.”
“Well load her up and head to the clinic, and I’ll meet you there.” I reply.
“Well Doc, that’s my other problem. My trailer is broken. I can’t get her there.”
“Okay, I’ll head your way, and we’ll see what we can do.”
As I get off the phone, my friend in the foyer laughs at me and says “Have fun with that one.” She then asked what seemed like an innocent enough question, but in retrospect I blame the rest of the days events on her. She asked “Do you keep a change of clothes in your truck, or do you have to go home to change?”
“I keep extra in my truck.” I tell her.
So I gather up my girls from their classes (my wife and son had skipped church with a stomach bug), and off we head to pull a calf. “At least I’ll have cute assistants” I think to myself.
Half way to the farm, I ask one of my daughters to find me a change of clothes from my bucket in the back seat. “Dad, there are no extra clothes in here.” She replies. Then she proceeds to tell me something I already know “If you ruin your church clothes Mom is going to kill you.”
At the farm, I strip off my tie and dress shirt, and pull a pair of coveralls over my slacks. Then looking at the “lake” that has formed in the middle of his corrals thanks to this nice warm weather and the melting snow, I take off my dress boots and pull on my muck boots.
No one is around, but I can see the cow I need standing in the middle of the “lake” with a gigantic set of feet protruding from her backside. So I grab a rope, and start wading towards her. She sees me coming and chases me right back out of the pen.
Just as I land on the other side of the fence, the owner finally shows up. “She’s on the fight a little bit.” I tell him. To which he replies “Yeah, that and all the water are the other problems I didn’t tell you about. But don’t worry I called my buddy and told him we’re going to need a whole cowboy crew to get her taken care of. And he said he’d bring plenty of help.”
As we stand there I watch the cow I need join the rest of the herd, on the far side of a round bale feeder. Not wanting to wait for his cowboy crew, I think maybe I can sneak up on her, keep the feeder between her and I, maybe rope her, or maybe dive inside the feeder for protection, if she decides to take me again. The herd sees me coming though and circles the lake to the far side of the pen.
“We’re going to have to get her in a smaller area.” I tell the owner.
“The only spot I have that’s any smaller is this pen with the bull in it.” He says. “But I guess we could push him on the other side there, and close the gate to get him out of the way.” “That will have to do.” I reply.
This gentleman then climbs into the little pen, to push the bull to the other side. But the bull apparently worked up from all the circling cattle, puts his tail straight up in the air, and charges the farmer. Who clears the fence just in time. The bull then wanders into the smaller part of the pen on his own. I swing the gate behind him, and jump into the pen to chain it behind him.
When I walk to the other side of the pen, to open the gate to get the cow in. The farmer is sitting on the ground holding his head. “Are you alright?” I ask. “Yeah, I think I just hit my head on the fence getting away from that bull. I feel funny.”
That’s when I decide I need to call for my own help. So I yell to my daughter, “Please call Larry Oster for me, tell him where we’re at, and ask him to come help.”
I then circle the “lake” the herd takes off away from me, heading straight towards the little pen. Amazingly the whole herd veers off before entering, but the one cow I need runs into the smaller pen by herself. Finally, something goes right!
“Close the gate!” I yell to the farmer who is standing there now. He just stands there with a stupid look on his face. I reach the gate, close it myself, and ask him “Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’m Batman!” He replies.
“Great.” I think to myself. I have a pissed off cow in a little pen that I still need to rope to deliver the calf. In the pen next to her is a pissed off bull. The owner of these animals now has a concussion and thinks he’s Batman, and I’m here all by myself.
When my assistant, Larry Oster shows up we get to work and get the cow roped, and snugged up to the fence. I jump in behind her and get chains hooked to the calf’s feet.
At this point Batman’s “cowboy crew” finally shows up. The crew consists of two old ladies, a young mother with three kids under the age of five, plus a baby in her arms, one 20 something kid that I doubt has ever seen a cow, and four yapping dogs.
The pissed off bull, decides this is too much chaos for him, jumps the rickety panels that make up his little pen, and takes off down the road.
Part way through getting my calf pulled the cow lays down. Causing me to squat perilously close to the mud to keep pulling. As of this point, my coveralls and my church slacks underneath have managed to remain remarkably clean.
With the calf on the ground, to my great surprise, and to the “oohs and ahhs” of Batman and the “cowboy crew” the calf is still alive.
Then I see something I dread, with the size of the calf, the uterus is attempting to prolapse right behind the calf. I grab the protruding pink mass and shove it back inside. I’m now in a crazy plank yoga position. One arm stuffed in the back of the cow, my body straddling the mud and the puddle created by the birth of a calf, trying desperately not to let my knees with my church slacks touch the ground, and balancing on my toes on the other end. Larry is running to the truck to grab me materials to suture the prolapse up inside. Which is when I notice that the calf is not breathing as well as it had been.
So now I have one arm in the backside of the cow holding in the prolapse, one leg outstretched at a 90 degree angle to my body, using my foot to massage the chest of the calf to try to stimulate it to breathe. While my body is still held in a plank over the puddle standing on the toes of one foot trying to protect my church slacks, so my wife doesn’t kill me.
Finally Oster returns with the materials, I try suturing the cow up in this position. But my strength gives out on me, and I collapse into the puddle.
Finally the prolapse is sutured in place, the calf is breathing better again. We get the mother up. We open the gate up, and the bull comes running back in on his own, to rejoin his herd. Batman is starting to wake back up, and is now asking “What happened? What are y’all doing here?” And the “Cowboy crew” got to enjoy free admission to a rodeo.
So I gather up my things and head for home. Inside the truck my daughters take one look at me and say “Mom is going to kill you!”
At home I strip off in the mud room and am spraying down my slacks with Spray-n-Wash, in the desperate hope that maybe they’ll come clean and my wife will never know. My son comes in takes one look at my slacks, his eyes go wide as he asks “Are those your church pants?! Mom is going to kill you!”
Amazingly they came out of the washer looking good as new. So I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to the fine people at Spray-n-Wash. Y’all saved a marriage today, and quite possibly my life.