This week I lost a good friend, Granny Cow

I have thought about this all week, but I decided it is a part of ranching. Part of life is death, and all good cows must die too.

This story started last January, when it was so cold that if a calf was born and the cow didn't get it up soon enough, that calf would get frost bite or freeze to death. It was during this cold spell that I became the mommy to Ruffles, Raisin, and Patch, but there was a little calf and her mommy that were so special. I named this little gal Destiny and her mommy became Granny Cow.

I first came across Granny Cow on the Leech Place and she came up to me and was moo-ing, I don't know how to describe it, but it was different, so I followed her to the side of the canyon wall. Laying there was this little calf, and I could see that she had frost bite pretty bad, when I got off of Trotter to see her, you could smell it, rotten flesh. I tried to get her up, but she couldn't stand, so I lifted her on Trotter and started across the field with her on the horse and the cow walking beside me. Most cows would have flattened you for just being to close to her calf, but Granny Cow knew that her calf needed help. This was the beginning of a very special relationship between Granny Cow and myself. After I took the calf to Main Canyon and started treating her I would hold her up so that she could nurse, then I had Roger make me a stand for her but this made it impossible for Destiny to suckle any longer.

About a week after Destiny came home, I got Tyson who was a huge calf that must have had a very hard time being born, and Bozo and he was a pretty big calf also, and Mr. Rowdie. I was making 3 bottles and 3 gallons of calf milk 3 times a day. I would feed calves from 6:30 am to around 8 am, and then I would start working on Destiny's feet and legs which would take another hour and half. I would get done just in time to start over with the noon feeding. At first I had all the calves in the same pin as Granny Cow, and one morning I noticed that Granny Cow was trying to get the two big calves to suckle her, she was licking them and moo-ing to them. That cow was so thankful that I was trying to safe her calf that she was willing to help me out, and a huge help she was, a full source of prepared milk.

Little Destiny lived for about a month, and then the infection got to bad for her to fight any longer. I can remember the morning that I went up to the calf pin, and she was laying there with her mommy standing there next to her, I sat down and she put her tiny head on my leg and both Granny Cow and I just stayed there until she died. I was crying and Granny Cow kept licking her, then Granny Cow looked up and walked over to the other calves and started feeding them. A few weeks  later, that cow took those two calves and raised them, when I would see them out on the range, she would always come over and say hello'. Trotter even got use to her coming up to us and hanging out for a while.

This week I found Granny Cow laying on her back in a ditch. I don't know how long she had been there, but I was so sad to see that she had died all alone and no one came to help her. That cow was a rare kind of an animal, most cows are out to hurt you, but Granny Cow was so kind, gentle, and most of all loving. That cow had a good soul, and I know that I will miss having her around here.