Calves

Reading The Pioneer Woman's blog this morning jogged my memory about the first time Lowell and I bought some calves. Remember now that I was raised in a town and new NOTHING about farming or livestock. We were living on the farm in Redwood and Lowell was driving a school bus. We bought 2 Holstein calves at a sale barn and brought them home in the back seat of our '49 Ford. (we took the back seat out) I was supposed to have bought milk replacer the day before(I forgot) so when it came time for the calves to be fed the next morning I first had to go to town to get it since Lowell was picking up kids. I mixed it like the directions said and filled two pails half full. Lowell told me that the idea was to stick the calves head into the pails and they would drink. Yah right. I pushed - they bucked - I pushed - they backed up. I finally got each one in a corner and after a bit of persuasion they drank. I was wet, my hands were slimy and I discovered muscles I didn't know I had. It didn't take long for them to learn to drink from the pail and later from a bottle and it was kind of fun to feed them.