Who trips over a calf?

Whilst hiking in the Northern Vermont woods in August of 2004, my husband, Jim, stubbed his boot on what he thought was a fallen tree. When he pushed aside the tall, frost covered grass (yes, frost!), shooed away the hundreds of flies and examined it more carefully, he realized it was a lifeless newborn calf.

How sad, he thought. He knew the farmer who owned the land and knew there had been a cow who died giving birth a few days earlier but no one ever found the calf. He stood, solemnly looking at the spindly legged animal when he noticed a tiny twitch of an ear. What? This baby was somehow alive.

He tried to stand her up but she was so stiff and weak, it was almost impossible. He hauled her up over his shoulder and carried her back home to warm her and call a Veterinarian.

“I can’t charge you $800 to treat a calf that isn’t viable,” the vet said. “It won’t live without the benefit of its mother’s colostrum, the first milk.”

Jim called the farmer to ask if he had any cows who had recently given birth and could provide the calf with some colostrum.

“Nope. There’s no hope for it. Just put it back where you found it.”

“Not happening,” Jim said. “I’m coming for raw milk.”

When he reached the farm, all there was in the dusty barn, to put milk in, was an old Stoli Vodka bottle. The men rinsed it in boiling water and filled it with milk from a holding tank, careful to get the fattest part of the milk into the bottle. Jim rushed to Agway for a calf sized feeding bottle, gently warmed the milk and tried to get her to drink it.

“There you go” he said, each time she made any attempt to pick up her head and take it.

Once she tasted a few drips, she grabbed the nipple and sucked like her life depended on it, which it did. In telling me the story, JIm said she could have sucked a ping pong ball through that pinhole with how much force she had, once she got going.

There isn’t hard logic to why baby Elsie lived long enough for my husband to find her, but her life had such meaning and purpose as she grew. She was raised with golden retrievers and loved chasing a soccer ball. She walked politely on a lead. Not because she was taught to, but because she genuinely loved doing it.

When she was about a year old, it became clear that this stunning Jersey Heifer needed to be with others of her own kind. She moved down the road to a farm with other Jerseys, children, and a family active in 4-H. She won ribbons in shows, walked in parades and even became a 4-H ambassador. Everyone loved her.

I don’t wonder why this calf lived long enough for Jim to find her. She had a purpose as do we all. She touched more lives than we’ll ever know, and Jim said it was one of the most significant events of his life.

Stay tuned for Elsie’s take on this episode…..

LouiseMacQueen.com