Bernardo's First Days

I bought a gallon of milk the day before Maija, my milk cow, had a calf.

My daughter, Abby, said you can’t make these things up.

The calf staggered to his feet as Maija blocked pelting snow.

He stood hip-height to me, with a big neck just like his daddy.

I pushed Maija into the milking chute and brought the calf to her side to nurse, knowing that life-giving colostrum would warm him from the inside.

He bumped her bag and nosed around her neck, searching about a foot higher than he should have.

I laid him under Maija and put his mouth to her faucet.

This position was not a part of his instinctive code.

He gave up.

I milked out Maija, laid down some straw for the calf and ran to the house for the calf-tuber.

He didn’t like that tube in his throat, but his full belly warmed him.

By afternoon, the wind created a lovely ground blizzard.

I loaded the calf onto a sled and dragged him into a cozy pen in the barn. Maija followed.

The calf found Maija’s faucet but couldn’t figure out how to wrap his tongue around it.

When I tried to squirt warm milk into his mouth, he clenched his teeth.

I wasn’t particularly surprised. Big calves often are dumb about nursing – it’s a tradeoff for having enough body mass to survive a bone-chilling storm a little longer.

When I placed the faucet in his mouth, he sucked but he buried his nose in Maija’s bag, suffocating himself.

Meanwhile, the barn cat watched patiently.

This wasn’t her first rodeo.

This time I had the calf-tuber with me.

I backed him to a corner, straddled him and threaded the tube down his throat, careful to slide it past his lungs so I didn’t instantly drown him.

Bernardo – by now he had a name – resisted by laying down.

I followed, sitting on him while holding the tube and jug of milk deep in his throat.

He bellowed.

Maija came to investigate, her horns in my face bringing flashbacks of my first milk cow, Helga.

One bellow from Helga’s calf would have sent her into full amazon warrior mode, charging at the threat, impaling it with her horns and pawing the bodily remains into the ground.

I know this because every year when Helga had a calf, she chased me over the fence for the entire first week.

Helga taught me the power of motherhood hormones.

As I held the tube in Bernardo’s mouth and watched my life flash before my eyes, Maija mooed at her baby, then licked my hand and gaped her mouth.

I found an alfalfa pellet in my pocket.

Bernardo bellowed again.

Maija contentedly rolled the pellet around in her mouth.

The next morning, Bernardo started to get the hang of feeding himself.

Kind of.

I held him in position with my knee behind him, pushed his head to the right place and stuck the faucet into his mouth.

He sucked without suffocating himself.

I called it a win.

I helped him nurse until he laid down, legs curled under himself, head up and eyes alert.

When I asked if he wanted more, he slurped at me from his bed.

While I helped him find more breakfast, the cat tipped the milk bucket over. So much for saving that colostrum for a future hungry baby.

Maija just stood munching her hay.

That evening, Bernardo finally caught on, locating the faucet and only needing me to stick the end into his mouth.

I milked out one side while Bernardo bellied up to the other side.

We finished about the same time.

I poured a little milk into the cat’s bowl, then set the bucket on a safe shelf.

Bernardo burped.