Here She Is To Save The Day!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now read the title of this blog over again in a sing song fashion...I kid!  Only if the mood strikes you. 

By the way, I figured I needed to blog since God gave us a wonderful rain this past weekend.  I've said before that I'm as spotty as a rain shower, well, here I am.

Back to the story:

Now, for some of you this story is a repeat.  If you've seen Grace (pictured above) in the gas station, the grocery store, the post office or if you've stopped out at the farm to buy a tomato, you've heard it already.  It's a good one, and she claims she's a cow hero, so here it is, one more time...

Our daughter Kara and I were up testing grapes for the buyer as well as doing some picking from what the cow birds had missed (last year we were told that birds were color blind and not to worry about our white grapes.  Apparently they got contacts or had a optometrist visit, because they cleaned out 70% the whites in three days.) Argh!

Grace and her little sister were riding their bikes around the cattle pens and raced up to where we were at. 

"MOM!  There's a cow in the west pen having a baby!"

What?    I thought to myself?  That pen is all steers.  We have taught the kids to come tell us when there is something out of the ordinary so I thought I better check on it. 

We all load up in the big wheeler and head down to see a steer on it's side, severely bloated, and...

Big D.not.around.

Dang it!  BTW, Big D could be here 6 months straight and things would go so smoothly, the minute he leaves, I seriously think the critters plot against me.  That day he was putting in a kitchen in town.

I crawled over the gate as fast as a 8 month pregnant 38 year old could go and went to size up the situation. 

NOT GOOD.

By this time, he had banged his head against the ground so many times that his eye had swelled shut.  I tried to get him up myself and that wasn't working.  I called Ron and told him, then found one of my wonderful neighbors on his tractor and convinced him that he needed to come with me.  After all, I only needed him for "10 minutes" ...LOL!

After trying to shove a hose down his throat unsuccessfully to try and get the gas out, I called the vet and thought maybe we could stick him (with a knife) as long as we knew the exact area to do it in.  You have to be pretty precise. 

Just then, Ron pulled up, got the bobcat and helped the steer to his feet with the bucket.  You could tell that the bovine felt better already just by being on his feet.  Then the vet showed up and used the coolest tool ever. 

See that red circle on it's back?  That is to keep it from bloating.  The vet uses that to keep the bloated stomach open then as the stomach heals, the cork screw works itself out.  Isn't veterinary medicine fascinating?  Well, it is to me.  Later that evening Big D and I went to a baseball fundraiser where we sat with a married couple who live down the road from us.  He showed me how to do it with an IV needle if I'm ever in that situation again and alone.  Very cool. 

So, if you see Grace out and about ask her about her heroism...she'll look at you with those serious blue eyes of hers and tell you, "Yep, I saved it's life. You know, it's always important to look through the cows and see if you see anything strange.  If you do, you gotta tell your mom or dad."

Sincerely,
I think my kids rock, Fairchild Farmgirl.