Dealing with the unexpected is a way of life on the farm. You plan. You prepare. You predict. And the weather, the cattle, the people throw you a curve ball and you are off jogging across the pasture hoping to stop the 2000 lb. cow running towards the open gate. Lessons in flexibility, patience, and endurance are a daily practice.
And into this mix of the unexpected, you throw calves. Calves are unpredictable, unruly, and completely disrespectful. By disrespectful, I mean that calves are like water. They flow under fences, into new paddocks, and always find the one patch of shade in the midst of a grassy field. They are never where you want them and never go where you push them. In the afternoon, you will hear a mama bawling wildly for its young one to come and eventually, most likely hours later, the little one will wake up from its bed of sunshine and find mama.
Twilight is the best time to go calf watching. Calves that sleep in a pile of grass all day are feisty in the evening coolness. They find a patch of open field that can only be called a race track and fly back and forth, legs to their ears. It is too fun to just sit and watch. So secretly, at twilight, I'll sometimes go and run with the calves. It's especially fun with a whole herd of calves running like the dickens. They aren't quite sure what you are in the twilight, but they are ready for a rip-roaring time. Their little black legs fly into the air as they kick out with all the joy, trembling inside their little bodies. It almost looks like they are close to take off. To go jump over the moon perhaps? I wouldn't doubt it.
One such night, I had taken my camera to watch the calves and been sucked into the glee of the moment, whooping and running in my bare feet across the pasture with the calves chasing behind me. I stopped and watched as one of our calves ran to a small sapling that grew in the middle of the paddock with a trunk about two inches thick. As I watched, the calf backed up slowly and then with a flying leap head butted the trunk of the tree making the leaves and branches sway wildly. The calf skipped around the tree and proceeded to repeat the process: head butt, tree flying, head butt, tree flying until it skittered off to join its small herd of calves racing around the paddock. It would be difficult to watch that moment and not be filled with indescribable joy. Even the cows, Clyde the bull, and our other older cattle cannot resist the joy that a calf brings to the herd. I've watched a calf go flying, weaving between the legs of the much larger, heavier cows and watched the cows respond by running and kicking their feet in a comical, clumsy, heavy mimic of the calf.
And so, while life is unpredictable, chaotic, and unexpected, in these moments, it can also bring the purest, indescribable joy.
