Senior pictures and saving lives

Today we had a few minutes free after church, so I wanted to take a few pictures of my boys who are seniors in high school. I have taken the pictures for my boys as it has been too hard to schedule in a professional and the boys are usually not interested in smiling for a couple of hours. So we grab a few minutes here and there and snap a few.

The weather is pretty nice, the lighting mostly diffuse and we have a great old barn that I thought would make a good backdrop for a few shots. So the boys and I headed over after lunch and snapped a few pictures.

I kept playing with lighting and making the boys smile and then not smile... they started getting a little grumpy!

As we finished, we looked around at the cattle in the pen. A heifer was sprawled out in labor and seemed to be having trouble. As we got closer, we see that she has had the calf, but is lying with her feet slightly uphill and is unable to roll over to stand up! She needs help!!

In our good clothes, we run to help her...yes we were still wearing our muck boots...I wasn't planning to get feet in the pictures today. So Tyler helps the heifer roll onto her chest so she can stand up. But when she does, she is revved up and jogs dazedly away from her newborn bull calf.

So as Eric and I urge the heifer to follow her calf, Tyler grabs a hold of the calf and drags him into the barn where we lock them up together. As soon as the mama sees the calf, she investigates and sniffs him closely; then she begins licking him vigorously! She has it figured out. So we keep them penned up together until the baby gets a drink of colostrum and they both are well bonded.

Another crisis averted! Way to go, boys! Dress clothes don't slow us down--but they do need washed now.

We are expecting quite a few calves this week. Our first due date is next Saturday, but cattle bred for low birth weight calves usually come early. So we expect to have about 50 calves by next Saturday! I'll keep you posted to see if my estimate is right!