Oh look at that precious face: beautiful and seemingly docile; but, do not let that gorgeous face fool you! She is ornery and energetic as well as headstrong and fearless! She took us on a romp this morning that should have been no big deal except for a few special circumstances coupled with her strong personality.
First, let me say, she will be three weeks old tomorrow! From the first hour of her birth, I knew that she was different from Mocha’s previous three calves in that she was hitting “milestones” ahead of her sisters. Some milestones she hit days before her older sisters. She stood within her first hour. She only needed to be shown once how to nurse. She ran around Mocha in the stall within 24 hours of her birth. From her birth, she was too tall to duck under her mama. She drank from the water trough with her mom in the first few days. The list goes on and on!
She is like the other calves in that she doesn’t like to have the lead rope put on and be forced to go somewhere, whether to the barn, to the pasture or from stall to stall in the barn. She plants her front feet and sticks her chin up in the air with a fierce determination to stand her ground. In her first few days of life, she rewarded the person on the backside pushing her by defecating on them, which was a good thing as far as monitoring her food intake, but not nice for the person trying to push her to go where she didn’t want to go!
She is pretty independent too! From her first hours, she just had this settledness and confidence about her. She doesn’t seem too bothered to be put in a separate stall while I milk Mocha. The other calves would bellow and moo but for the most part, Hazel just lays down and waits until we come for her.
Well, her independence showed in full living color this morning. For the past several days, she and Mocha have had the full run of the front and side pasture but since there isn’t much grass to be eaten in the back pastures right now, we had to move Jersey and Caramel to the front and put a second strand of electric fence tape across to accomodate Hazel’s small size, thinking she couldn’t get through, allowing she and Mocha to in the side pasture. (A little side note of history, last week, she ran right under the electric tape and had some crazy frolics in the front pasture while Mocha stood in the side pasture yelling for her, unable to get past the single strand of electric tape.)
This morning, that little independent miss just ran and broke through the electric tape and frolicked with her grandma, Jersey, and her older sis, Caramel, running around so fast that her body was literally at a 45 degree angle to the ground! She roused Jersey and Caramel up something terrible! Caramel is due to deliver her own calf in about 8 days, so needless to say she doesn’t need to be frolicking in the pasture with her baby sis!
To make matters more crazy, while she was running around the pasture and avoiding being caught by me, (and I am talking around and around and around the pasture) Jersey decided to run interference for her by standing between me and her and then just as I would get close to Hazel, Jersey would take off which would clue Hazel in that I was getting close and off she would go again! At one point, I was so frustrated I wasn’t sure if I was going to cry, yell or just double over in laughter.
I’m not really sure how long I ran around like a fool, chasing the illusive Hazel, but the thought did cross my mind “I now know why they lasso calves!” I think it would be a skill that would have come in quite handy this morning!
Eventually, by putting Mocha back in the corral, Hazel could no longer overcome her innate desire to be with her mom, so she headed back to the corral as well. But, what a workout she gave us! I often think how cool it would be if some “eye in the sky” was videotaping the antics that happen here on the farm, so that we could relive them and have a good belly laugh from time to time!
