I really tried this time to capture the actual birth of a calf on video so that those of you who want to share this event with your little ones would have the chance to show and explain exactly how that baby calf gets out of the momma cow.  Often city folks think it is "cool" how the country kids have a chance to witness the miracle of birth as a natural course of events on the farm.  The excess amount of unwanted kittens, puppies and other small animals bear witness to the ignorance of the common practice to "let the kids see birth just this time before we get the cat/dog fixed".  I always argue against this logic because unless you have a "life plan" for the proposed offspring ie you really want to have six more of whatever, or six less friends as you harass them into taking at least one, if not two of the surplus needy, expensive infants.  However here on the farm we have to look at the production of livestock as a business.  That said, there is a level of heightened anxiety each time gestation and delivery is anticipated.  If you are not right there at the exact moment to offer assistance if required, you may loose the whole year investment in the feeding and care of the cow.  This "hobby" cannot sustain itself under those circumstances.  So on December 28th, Father came in to tell me that our cow Boots aka "Fat Ass" (his name for her) was about to have her calf.  In anticipation of this miracle I was checking regularly, camera in hand to see if the event was to happen on my watch.  The conditions were excellent, bright sunlit time of day, balmy weather, cow in the paddock right behind the house with a handy bench for viewing and a very relaxed, experienced Momma cow who would not much mind the invasion of privacy during this blessed event.  So as I waited and watched with the two littles in snowsuits sitting beside me I was ready for the big event.  Being pretty experienced at this I knew that we were within approximately half an hour at most of the delivery.  So imagine my frustration when I was plagued by the chorus of whining from the two children at my side..."I'm cold.  I'm hungry.  Can I have a drink?  I want to go inside.  Where is Daddy?  What's taking so long?  Where is the baby cow?  What is she doing?  Why is she laying down?  Why is she getting up?  What is that sticking out of her bum?....yak, yak, yak.  In the end I capitulated and brought them back into the house to get them out of their snowsuits and settled in front of the television watching Bob the Builder when Father came in and said "Do you want to see the new calf? It just came".  The kids were pretty keen.  I just grabbed my camera and left Daddy to get everything back on them again.  So as you can see I missed it again!  Drats and double drats!  Friggen, friggen, fraggen frip!  Why, oh why, can I not just for once capture this.  The last time the sun and moon and stars lined up for a good video I had to fling the video camera aside, roll up my sleeves and start pulling as hard as I could with Papa to get the purple tongued behemoth bull calf out.  Needless to say there was little video of value in that exercise as well.   So folks this is all I have for this year.  We are expecting three more calves in 2015 and possibly more in the late part of this year if these two cows are bred early again.  Unfortunately I will be going back to work the third week in March so the timing becomes even more compressed as you hope and pray for safe deliveries on weekends, evenings and other times when you are at home to help out.  In the mean time all I can say is "Good job Boots".  She sure is a good Momma and what a beautiful calf!  First Chrissy and now Carol to honour the time of year that they were born.

Yep that is some slippery stuff.  Not anything I would want to lick up!

The first few attempts at getting up are always the most amazing.