A One Cow Adoption Agency – Life’s Outtakes by Daris Howard

By Daris Howard

copyright © 2007 All Rights Reserved

Daris Howard can be reached at daris@darishoward.com or by going to www.darishoward.com

I was adopted when I was 16.  I really was.  However, it’s not like you may think.  You see, it all started one fall day when a young heifer, Daisy, was having her first calf.  She had a hard time in birthing and we eventually had to partially anesthetize her in order to get the calf born.  Unfortunately, the calf did not survive.

My dad said he would take care of the calf and told me to get Daisy some water, hay, and a bucket of grain.  By the time I returned Daisy was just coming around.  Now, animals have some kind of inborn mechanism that tells them they have had offspring, and Daisy was no different.  As she looked around and found no other living entity, she, with her cow brain, put two and two together and got something like five, and decided I must be her calf.

As I was coaxing her to eat, she instead, being the good mother she was, decided I should eat first.   She struggled to her feet and tried to nuzzle me back to the end that had the milking apparatus.  I may not be the fastest gun in the holster, but it didn’t take me long to realize what she was thinking.

“No!” I told her.  “I’m not hungry, and besides, I hate warm milk!”

She was not about to take no for an answer, so I decided it was time for me to make my exit and I headed for the fence.  She thought otherwise, and though she was still somewhat wobbly on her feet, she headed to cut me off.  She positioned herself between me and the fence and decided I had been a bad calf and determined she would give me a lickin’.  A real lickin’, I mean.

She reached out her bristle tongue and scraped it across my face.  If you have never experienced a cow licking you before and would like to know what it feels like, just ride a bike at full speed and then jump off face first into gravel.  It’s about the same sensation.

“You stupid cow!” I yelled as I tried to fend off her attack with my arm, as she licked divots into my skin.  I was just ready to make a mad break for the fence when she stepped on my foot, pinning it to the ground.  The more I tried to push her away the faster and harder she licked me.  These was the days before steel toed shoes and her 1500 pound weight was grinding my foot into hamburger.  The more I pushed her to get her off, the more she leaned on that foot.  Finally, exerting all of my strength, I pushed against her and her hoof rolled off the front of my toes, taking all of the skin with it.  I ducked under her head and hobbled at a full gallop to the fence with her hot on my trail.  I dove over the fence, safe from my adopted cow mother.

She put to bellowing, eying me as if to say, “Come back, you stupid calf!”  After a day or two she went hoarse and I thought she’d have surely forgotten all about me.  I decided to take a leisurely stroll through the pasture with my new dog.

There is nothing a cow hates around her offspring more than a dog.  Daisy had no sooner spotted us than she was in hot pursuit of the dog.  The only problem was, the dog was determined to keep me between him and Daisy.  I was sure I was going to get trampled in her over zealous desire to protect me.  We played ring-around-the-cow-pasture for some time and then the dog made the mistake of breaking away from me.  Once separated, Daisy chased him clear back through the gate.

Quick as a flash she was back.  She started nuzzling me toward the rest of the herd.  I think she planned to introduce me.  As she mooed at the other cows and shook her head at me, as if to say, “meet my new calf”, the other cows looked sideways at her as if they thought she was a few bales short of a stack.

Her undesired attention continued for a whole year, until she finally had another calf – one that lived.  I went out to see her new baby and she looked at me.  Suddenly, a look of confusion spread across her face as she looked at me and back at her calf a couple of times.  Then she mooed to the other cows and I could sense she was saying, “Wow, that calf I had last year really was an ugly one, wasn’t it?!”