Ice Queen

Well, wouldn't you know it?  Right after, no...probably during the last post about "how much I love my babies..." I had to put my money where my mouth is.
siiiiigh.
Funny how things work like that, huh?

This is how it went down:

Last Friday morning I was immersed in my usual work routine, which now consists of feeding obnoxious amounts of hay every.day.. Seeing as it was a balmy 8 degrees (with sun shining!!), I had to feed awholebunch everywhere.

But first!

 

This is what we do, we take pictures of fearless felines doing phenomenal stunts!
...I wish phenomenal stated with an 'f'.

Back to the story:
I finished feeding Prospero, one of the finishing herds, and headed to my cow/calf haven at Sheets Hollow.  It is a haven, you would agree if you saw it.  Sent from above.
Now, when the sun is shining, especially in the morning, I pull into SH and they come a'runnin'.  Big old pregnant black cows, little Piney Woods, red, black and white, you name it.  Tails UP and hammered down!
That good old sunshine brings out the best in them :).
Anyway, (I got lost in the moment) I headed to the top of a hill to drop a round bale and let it unroll itself(really the easiest way), and upon dropping it turned to spot a teeny,tiny black dot in the middle of a great big pond.
A frozen pond.
A frozen mudandcowpoopfilled pond.  Sorry.  It's true.
It took me exactly .375 seconds to get to the edge of that pond, get out and say, "well crap".
I did.

(you can't see him because I took this after...fyi.)

 

Poor little fella, I assumed fella because...I mean really...
Anyway, the poor little calf was all splayed out, in the middle of the frozen slab of what used to be their favorite swimming hole.  Mama, #5, was standing at the edge, and I knew it was her by her constant "calling" to him with the unmistakable sound of distress.  Like The Heat did that time we got chased by a Jersey bull, Oh Rachael! I can't do this!!!.
I looked at him, looked at the ice, took into account the sun and his body heat(what little of it there was), and decided if I didn't get him off of it quickly he would fall through and would be lost.
I made a miserable attempt at crafting a rope with a loop in the end out of a ratchet strap I had.  Every time I threw it his way he would scootch a little further, never mind that the rope never made it actually to him.  Way to go me.
So, being the dingy I am, I started stepping onto the ice....step...step...ste...WAIT!  Well this is stupid, I'm going to fall!
Back to the shore.
I decided I would kneel down, yeah yeah! This will work! I crawled a few feet then, like straight out of a movie, a big crack erupted from between my knees and extended through my hands and all the way to him.  Panic!!!! Scootchscoothscootch all the way back.
Plan D.  It's always good when you get to D.
From the frozen shore where I knelt, I decided that I weigh entirely too much.
No, that's not it!
I decided that if I was going to get him I needed to lay down, spreading my abundance of weight out, and slide my body to him that way.
At this point there was NO second thought.  It was all you got this! Just go real fast! You might get wet, but hey it will take a little while for the moisture to make it through all those clothes! Rah rah rah!
And so I did, I slide out there, grabbed his little hoof and made like a bandit for shore.
This is him with mama....

He couldn't bring his legs together very well, due to the fact that he was very new to this world, and had probably been on the ice for some time.  I worried about him. A lot.

This was the little feller today.

He has his tongue out for ya :).

Now, you can't tell me he wasn't worth the effort.  

Anyway, the story of the Ice Queen ended like it should have; the baby was reunited with his loving mother, and as for the Queen, let's just say if this happens again the Ice King won't be the first person she calls ;).

My "normal" routine has changed from 'check the cattle', to 'check every square inch of the field because strange things happen after you blog'.  Amen.

Love and  icicles,
CowLady

P.s. THIS is what I have to look forward to tomorrow....
 

 

The forecast makes me sad.