It was early in the afternoon at the tail end of calving season when my dad mercifully showed up at school to pull me out of my grade 11 history class. I remember thinking what a gorgeous day it was. An unseasonably warm stretch had melted most of the snow, the grass was starting to green up and, though I wasn’t sure, I thought I may have caught a snatch of meadowlark song.
Alas, my jovial mood wasn’t to last. Dad had pulled me out of school to help him with a little second-calf heifer that had spent the better part of the day labouring to bring a calf into the world. Two feet had made their entrance, but they were the wrong two feet – the little guy was coming out backward. Dad had gotten Mama cornered in the stackyard at the bottom end of the pasture, but it was going to be a two-man job (at least) to get that calf out of her. Any hope of saving the calf had been exhausted hours ago, and the cow was starting to wear down. It wasn’t going to be a banner day on the Marchant outfit, and we’d probably need a dose of divine intervention to stay out of catastrophic territory.
We got a rope around her neck, pinned her against the rotted corner brace of the stackyard fence and got to work jimmying the poor little critter out. After what felt like a week of pulling and repositioning and pulling again, the tail and hips squeezed through, and out slipped a black bull calf, slick and wet … and breathing. As soon as we got the rope off her, the young mother turned around and started licking her baby dry. Ten minutes later, the little feller was on his feet and enjoying his first meal, as if this had been a perfectly normal, uneventful birth.
Dad and I didn’t say much as we watched instinct and wobbly legs do their job. What was there to say? We had both been as prepared as you ever can be to lose both cow and calf. Instead, we had been witness to – and a part of – an undeniable miracle, a double dose of divine intervention. And if there had been any question earlier, there certainly wasn’t now; the meadowlarks were lettin’ it rip with a happy birthday serenade.
I’ve spent most of my life around cattle, but that otherwise unremarkable pair has stuck with me as a reminder that, even in the midst of a train wreck, the good Lord often sees fit to show His hand.
As cattle producers, the line between train wreck and triumph is often so thin as to be all but invisible. Your operation’s success depends on the ability of you and your cattle to walk that razor’s edge and fall on the right side of it more often than not. A fancy, zillion-dollar bull can bust a leg before he services a single cow. The fall grass could run out way too early and force you to ship a couple of truckloads of hay all the way from dadgum Kansas. Your daughter’s boyfriend might get manicures and mistakenly believe words like “drippy” and “rizz” belong in adult conversation. Yet, you keep at it, out of honest faith that the payoff is on its way. Your continued presence in this business is a pretty strong indicator that your faith isn’t misplaced.
And that, my friends, qualifies as a miracle.
