A Midwestern storm blew in just as our family cow went down and refuses or cannot get up. I spent 4 hours in the freezing rain pulling and pushing, running a quarter mile back and forth to the house checking on the kids and trying to make dinner then back to Rosie. The sheep are in heat and the ram was feeling aggressive. I got the truck in the pasture and felt like I broke the fence trying to get it there and keep all the sheep from escaping led by the llama. I did it though, facing the truck downhill and put the brights on so I could keep going down to Rosie, begging her to get up, pulling on her, the rain freezing in my hair and making my clothing stiff as it froze and thawed and refroze. My breath like needles on my mouth in the air, in and exhale. Rosie's calf, crying out for milk and the ram slamming on her side. All of us begging her to get on her feet. Rosie tried and tried and just couldn't. I get that. I get being so deep into pain and just not having the energy to get back up even with pulling and pushing and begging and the rain.
I cannot give up on her. I called the vet for after hours help and he came to the farm in the dark, freezing rain. I called Chad and was rude to him about not being home, but he got on the road and headed home.
The vet got Rosie stable, a could shots, instructions. I hauled a tarp to the pasture. I gathered food for her. I made oven baked shrimp for the kids. Changed diapers. Changed boots and into dry clothes and repeated the rounds out to the pasture.
By the time Chad got home, all my own pain and all my own loneliness had frozen and was crackling into shards of nothingness. Rosie still isn't doing well, two days later, but she's still with us. We are nourishing her and attending to her. Praying that she'll make it.
Me? I am still out there. Soaked to the bone in freezing rain, buried in a foot of snow, waiting for the moment when I will be up on my feet again.
You and Rosie are in our thoughts, Danelle.
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