Goats in the Living Room, Calves in the Bathtub

We have goats in the living room. Kid goats that were just born a little weak and cold today in this cold, windy, wintery blast we are having in April. Kid goats and 7 kid girls on the living room carpet by the wood stove with the kid girls trying to coax the kid goats into standing and trying to eat.

Our life is intertwined with that of animals. So much that, as we were heading home with daylight left from a day at the park with friends last Sunday, Mae said that our lives were ruled by cows (we had to feed yet that night). I guess she was right to some extent.

We have a rooster chicken called idiot head that the kids hate. They throw rocks at him whenever he comes by, as he runs free with about 7 others (the others are friendly). The Great Pyrennes big white dog named Sadie can be heard at any time of night patrolling the perimeter of the ranch headquarters area with her deep rolling bark on the wind of the night, keeping coyotes honest (is that possible?).

Katie the cat just had kittens in the barn. She hid them all when the kids had friends over who didn’t listen to our kids when they said not to touch them yet.

Arrow, the border collie is about to pup. She bred to our other border collie, Gyp. We watch her carefully.

Last winter, we bought some winter calvers from a neighbor. Sure enough, we got one of those 20 below blizzards with wind in February. I lived with the cows out in the river bottoms, sleeping with them out there in the 20 below (I had two sleeping bags and was still cold).

Early in the morning, I found a calf that I missed, dead in a snowbank.

It was stiff and cold as mom stood over it, hoping for life. Ice covered. Then I saw a faint puff of steam come off of its nostrils in my headlamp. I picked up the stiff carcass, with mom hot on my tail, threw it on the pickup seat and roared off the 2 bumpy miles to the ranch. The white ’74 Ford (its name is Caspar) didn’t like the cold either, and lacks a heater. The calf wouldn’t get anything done for it until I got home.

I pulled up to the house and scooped up the calf and ran to the front door. “Turn on the bathtub!” I said as I set the calf down in front of the hot woodstove. In a few minutes, the tub was full of hot water, and we dropped the calf in.

Ann and Marie held the calf’s head up so he wouldn’t drown. In a few minutes, he was convulsing and kicking wildly. Then his eyes rolled around in his head. It was all the girls could do to keep him above water so he wouldn’t drown.

I remembered one time my totally numb feet thawed by the wood fire. I felt like convulsing too. I thought I was going to cry. I think that is what this calf felt over his entire body.

After his feet finally got warm, we put him by the woodstove while I went out to do chores. Several hours later I came back to screaming, laughing girls and crazed wife trying to deal with a calf running around the kitchen, knocking over everything!

“Get this calf outta my house!”

Calf dry and warm now, standing, rambunctious on seat next to me in Caspar. We head out, now driving more sanely, back into the wind, the snow, the cold.

The cows are bunched in the willows, trying to hide from the wind. I can only get within 100 yards—it gets too rough beyond. Through my icy windshield, I see one cow peel out of the willows. She runs straight for me in Caspar. It is mom. She remembers. I roll the calf out, and he remembers. They touch noses and head back into the whiteout for the willows together.

Our lives are intertwined with animals. They permeate. Sometimes I catch Caryl and the girls referring to them as people. I remember one time we were out hiking and a couple came down the trail with several dogs. They realized our kids might panic when the dogs came roaring up, so they ran up also and tried to tell us and the kids that the dogs were friendly and it would be OK.

The kids were unfazed from the start. I looked up and said “It’s OK—our kids were raised with dogs.” They looked at me a little funny, and after a few words, they headed their way, and we headed ours.

Suddenly I had the grave realization that it might have come out wrong. I turned back and yelled out to them before they left earshot: “Did I just say that our kids were raised by dogs? I meant they were raised with them!”