Spring Part 2

Since the spring saw us calving out fifty or more first time heifers it was a lot more important to have help from a night herder. Well I fit that bill. Billy had all the daily work and to give him a nights sleep (except for emergencies) I became Dr. # two. Since I wasn’t very busy, we only had four young ones, I didn’t need to worry about missing any sleep, I could make it up during the daytime when I wasn’t busy. Did I mention our four little ones? During these years I can only remember one time I had to wake him for assistance. The fall was less hectic because the feeding had not begun. There were years Billy helped the neighbors with harvest chores and it was up to me to watch the springers. I had graduated to taxi driver by then, for our school kids, so stepping in during times when Billy was off working for the neighbors wasn’t any problem. This one year I was on duty again. I had made the rounds about five- thirty and was busy finishing meal preparations when Billy got home. I asked if he had checked the cows. He said he had. I asked if number thirty-nine had her calf yet. “ She’s not ready yet,” was his reply. “Yes she is,” I insisted. “No she isn’t. What makes you think she is ready?” he asked. “You can just tell by looking at her,” I came back. “Number seventy-two is closer than thirty-nine,” he stated. “I don’t know what you are seeing,” he grumbled as he drank his tea. “You can tell just by the look in her eye. She’s ready to have her calf. It‘s clear to see you never had a baby.” “Mom I thought you knew by now, you are looking at the wrong end,” he said as I set supper on the table and the kids came from all directions. “She looked at me the same way I looked at all the nurses and Dr. when I was waiting for ours to be born. Get this thing out of here!”