Visit with old friends

Lovett was inspired this week to go find her old friends Butter and Vinegar, the two calves she adopted in their first days of life, when their mothers had challenging births and were not able to nurse them.

We bottle fed them every day, twice a day, for three months, and have recently transitioned them all the way to rejoining the cattle herd. This process is called weaning, and it is something mothers do naturally with their calves.

With Lovett being a "young" mother at the tender age of eight, and the calves not quite ready to give up their milk, it was at times a heartbreaking process. They mooed and nudged us with their noses, wondering why there seemed to be less milk today than there was yesterday.

It's now been more than two weeks since they had their last bottle of milk, and a couple of days since we'd seen them. So we decided to drive out to see the cow herd and say hello to Butter and Vinegar.

Lovett was rewarded with both of them coming right up to her, nuzzling her and wagging their tails. In Lovett's words: Butter was even more friendly than before, and Vinegar came right up to me and gave me an "I miss you" nudge with her nose.

You can see the herd dynamics in the picture above. It is such an interesting and special feeling in the domesticated animal world when some animals bond closely enough that their instinctive fear of humans disappears. In the picture you can see how Lovett is sitting with her calves while the whole herd stands off to the side, watching.

These animals will likely be bonded to her for the rest of their lives, which may be for many years to come.

As I allow my mind to wander and marvel at the passage of time: she's eight years old now, and these cows may very well live for ten to twenty years. As a parent, I enjoy imagining where Lovett and these two animals will be in ten, fifteen, maybe even twenty years.

Here's to the future.

Nathan