Cows with Attitudes.

By Katie Daniels

Well, that’s what my dad calls them. There really more like, well, moods or personalities.

No, really. Elsie acts like she’s just shy, but once you get to know her you can tell, she’s really suspicious. Suspicious of everybody and every thing. She has an “everybody’s out to get me” attitude. So maybe they are ‘cow with attitudes.

I have this heifer, Trixie. She freshened (that is calved,) Sunday, January 22. I promptly captured her baby and penned her up, then milked Trixie. No problem right? Later that day….

“The calf is out.” I’m like, ‘great.’ I go put the calf away, find out how she got out, fix it, and go back inside. That evening I go to milk and… No calf.

It’s pouring rain, (REALLY pouring,) and this calf is NO WHERE!! I go get another flashlight and go look for another 20 minutes. Finally I find her deep in the temporary swamp and freezing cold. You should have seen the look on Trixie’s face when she saw I’d succeeded.

Next morning, Monday.…

No calf. By now she has a name, Fleurette. At the time it seemed to fit. But I refused to call such an evil creature by such a gentle name. I know referred to her only as ‘that thing.” As I go off to find her who shows up but trixie. If she could talk she would have said, “were are you going? Aren’t you going to milk me?” talk about sarcastic cows. She stands there innocently while I hunt up ‘that thing.’ It’s daylight now so despite the 4 inches of water that covered everything I find her. I got a rope around her neck and then we commenced the battle. She fought and fought but kept losing ground. Despite her four feet I had better traction. And I was winning so she was the one who kept collapsing to get her breath. Trixie followed along behind mooing encouragement. I get her put away and TRY to milk trixie. Fortunately I had ways of immobilizing her or I would not be alive to write this today.

So that evening I go to milk and there is my prisoner glaring at me defiantly. I milk, (that is, fight trixie to get what little milk I can keep,) and fix her a bottle, but she won’t eat. “I’ll eat from my mama or not at all,” is what she told me. She’ll change her mind in the morning when she’s hungry. I thought. She was hungry, but she didn’t change her mind. Next morning, (Tuesday,) I go to milk and… you guessed it. no calf. I dig her up AGAIN, and this time I tie her. Then I milk. That evening she’s still in her pen and believe it or not she ate. I guess she realized the game was up. The next morning, (Wednesday) she’s still there and she’s still eating. I was winning. I told everybody, ‘one more day and she’ll be mine.’ Sure enough today is my slave like all the other bottle calves I’ve raised. Moos after me and tries to eat me alive. She doesn’t give trixie a second look when she sees me coming with a bottle, and now I give her the decency of calling her by her name.

Well, you can imangine what trixie thought of me seducing her baby. What she didn’t realize was that I seduced her too when she was a baby and she’s none the worse for it. I tried telling her that she would get her back a few years, but she wouldn’t listen to me. You could see murder in her eyes. She has these horns and my sisters claim she tries to gore them. normaly she very gentle and doesn’t mean anything but now she knew she had those horns and meant to make use of them.