Posey’s job description is “nurse cow.” Nurse cows, ideally, will take any calf offered to them without much of a fight, but Posey isn’t most cows. And frankly, that’s pretty idealistic – Most cows are maternal enough that they really do only want their own calf, and aren’t happy with freeloaders, but Posey, Posey, Posey, it’s your job.
My father-in-law insists cows recognize their calves by smell, and the science behind grafting a bum calf on a cow that lost her calf is that after a few days of nursing her milk, the calf will smell like her own. The same principle should apply to Posey, but I pointed out to my father-in-law that it couldn’t be this cut and dry. Posey, last summer, would only ever let her adopted calf nurse if her own calf was nursing, so clearly there was some recognition there that went beyond smell. And this year, with two extra babies on her, she always knows which calf is Marigold. Marigold gets extra loving and grooming that the other two never get, and even though Posey has settled down and is content with all three, the two grafts never get the extra attention. Pretty fascinating.
However, even with the lack of maternal affection, the char and the black are doing well. It took a couple weeks of persistence, of separating all three calves from Posey and letting them nurse as a group twice a day and supervising Posey while she fed them, for things to settle into a routine, but it worked, and all parties are thriving and enjoying pasture freedom. The little black angus calf always nurses off the back, which are the largest quarters, and she is stout!
But it sure is satisfying to sit and watch those little tails whip back and forth.
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The end of winter comes as a relief. I love the change in seasons, and each one is dear to me for different reasons, but winter does get long, even mild winters like we had this year. I start craving the sight of greenness, and blooming things, and the frolicking of happy baby animals, and long walks in the sunshine, and actually breaking a sweat. So spring comes as a relief.
Back in November, I planted nearly 100 tulip and daffodil bulbs in my perennial garden, in front of the lilac bush. I cheered them on, over the last month or so, hoping and praying that they’d survive, since they had been a little hoodwinked by the warm weather into coming up a little extra early. I covered them with frost cloth on a number of nights, and warily checked them the following days, always glad to see minimal to no frost damage in spite of temps in the 20s. The first daffodil bloomed a few days ago, and the first tulips bloomed Easter Sunday. So worth the wait, and the work!
The plum and crabapple trees are blooming, the asparagus and strawberries have poked up through the soil, the lilac is heavy with dark buds, and the first pasques and bluebells are lurking on the hillsides in sunny places. Spring is well on her way.
After a few weeks of moderate turmoil, Posey and her three calves are thriving. The calves make the cutest little multicolored threesome, lazing around or playing together, napping while Posey grazes nearby. When the calves are close to the barn, I often find my cat, Spicy, curled up with them, enjoying their warmth.
It is a sweetness I just can’t get enough of.
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So on the one hand, I feel very spoiled. Not only do I have a husband who loves me, but he actually tolerates my love of milk cows and my huge garden and the chickens and the projects overflowing the kitchen. I get to mosey down to the barn after having coffee with him, milk what I want from my cow, and then have breakfast with her and her babies.
I do feel spoiled. But then there are the days when I am reminded of how much hard work it is. Wonderful work. Oftentimes enjoyable work. Sometimes miserable work. Work I wouldn’t trade. Hard work. It isn’t all sweet, slow mornings and a pint of warm milk.
So when there are mornings that I can leisurely have breakfast in the barn with my cows and my cats, I will, and I will savor them, because not every day is like this.
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I’d say I’m back in the milk business, but that really isn’t quite accurate. Posey is, and I steal a little here and there. After a somewhat tumultuous couple of weeks shuffling bum calves around, during which time she has fed four different calves and for 36 hours fed all four (she wasn’t impressed), we have her little family established and Marigold now has competition that isn’t me.
I have to say, I love standing down there watching three happy little tails whip back and forth, and their fuzzy little heads get wet from nursing, and their little bellies turn round and tight like little drums. They come up for air, standing there with their tongues stuck out before going back for more, and finally waffle off to sleep. They sure aren’t malnourished.
And I do occasionally snag some of that wonderful, rich, creamy milk. The perks of having a nurse cow.
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Originally published in the Custer County Chronicle on March 26, 2025
“So, will your column be about a certain baby milk cow named Marigold?”
Brad has a way of poking fun through the most innocent of questions. And he knew the answer a week ago, when Marigold was born. Of course the column would feature the newest addition to Laura’s dairy operation. Silly question.
Posey calved last Wednesday, producing the prettiest little Jersey x Brown Swiss heifer, all golden brown, and rosy pink wherever her skin shows through parted hair, like along her back or the little spot on her nose. Some calves are sort of knock-kneed when they’re born, or their proportions are just a tick off. Not Marigold. She has the sweetest, brown-rimmed doe eyes, the curliest eyelashes, the floppiest ears all pink inside, and the straightest, slenderest white legs with dainty little deer-like hooves. And she’s happy! So happy. She comes literally skipping into the shed when I’m milking in the morning, prancing around merrily until she decides to nap, quite the contrast to Posey’s calf last year, a big bull calf, who just wandered around headbutting everything and knocking stuff over. This delicate critter is rather captivating.
I’ve spent a shameless amount of time sitting down on the stoop of the shed, soaking in all the springtime pleasantness and the satisfaction of seeing that beautiful little baby milk cow skip around the corrals or curl up in a puddle of sunshine. The last 9 months were spent hoping that the sexed Jersey semen would do its job, and I am basking in the exceptional outcome. And she is perfect. For me, any baby cow is cute, even the funny looking ones or the less proportionate ones. But you know a calf is particularly cute when a seasoned rancher is willing to say so. I felt very gratified and validated when it took no coaxing to get such an admission from my husband or my father-in-law.
But it isn’t just about Marigold, as much joy as she brings me. It is about community. Connection. It is about generational relationships that I feel so blessed and fortunate and humbled to have married into. And those complex topics are represented by the simple existence of this little baby milk cow.
Her mother, Posey, was a gift to me from Brad a year and a half ago, purchased from dear friends and neighbors that Brad practically grew up with. She was born on their ranch, and her mother was their long-time nurse cow, raising who knows how many bum calves. This same neighbor’s brother, the dad of one of Brad’s best childhood friends, AI’ed Posey for me last year as a belated wedding present. What a gift!
We are not islands unto ourselves, as the saying goes. Our modern, industrialized, efficient, corporatized society creates the sense of islands, isolated groups and individuals seemingly disconnected from their neighbors. We’ve created a society where we rely most heavily on people we never will know, where person is separated from person by space and perspective and interests in ways that only deepen the sense of isolation. And technology, as much benefit as it brings, as much potential for good as it has, in many ways has driven this divide, as we are no longer forced to rely on those closest to us.
But peer into the inner workings of the agricultural community and you’ll see something very different. I’m continually amazed and blessed by the interconnectedness, and it begins within the four walls of each home. I rely on Brad. He relies on me. We rely on our families. They rely on us. We all rely on our neighbors. They in turn rely on us. And on it goes.
It is especially apparent going into branding season, where the all-hands-on-deck, neighbor-helping-neighbor work is accomplished to the benefit of the whole community, as everyone sees to it that everyone’s work gets done, but it shows up more subtly as well. As the stories fly, the community gets wonderfully smaller. The excellent cattle dog that you find out was out of So-and-so’s dog. The roping horse you’re told was trained by this person. The truck bought from that person. The chaps made by this person. The saddle crafted by that person. The branding stove made by So-and-so. The barn built by So-and-so. Adventures, mishaps, and memories shared across generations, binding family to family and neighbor to neighbor.
So, I look at my rosy-golden little calf and her mama and I see a distilled-down representation of community. I see the gift of a husband to his wife in Posey. I see the connection of friend to friend, neighbor to neighbor, in Marigold herself. I see family integration and affection represented by a nurse cow who generates no pasture bill and who raises whatever calf needs a mama, regardless of its brand, in a small way benefitting everyone.
Lots of thoughts prompted by a critter so tiny.
So, I will continue to shamelessly sit and watch the sweet interactions of a mama cow and her baby, listening to the noisy nursing sounds, watching that little white-splotched tail whip back and forth, watching the bony little head thump the shapely udder, watching the merry creature skipping around in play. And be thankful for the community I get to call my own.
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