Susan Fletcher!
Susan, because I absolutely admire that you have honored your sharecropper grandparents by living on their land and even building your new home there to continue your family’s legacy, I want to send you an Old Farmer’s Almanac so that you can display it in their memory, as you mentioned. Clearly, by your inheritance, your family knew you were deserving. What a wonderful daughter and granddaughter you are!
Watch for my message, and I’ll have a copy sent right out to you!
You may have heard on the news that “the Farmer’s Almanac is closing after their 2026 edition, ending more than 200 years of publication.”
When I heard that, I was sad because the Farmer’s Almanac had been such a beloved institution for so long. But my sadness shifted when the news anchor added that the Farmer’s Almanac was not to be confused with the OLD Farmer’s Almanac which was the oldest of the two and still going strong.
Wait. There’s TWO Farmer’s Almanacs?
Why didn’t I realize that? Probably because most people don’t tack on the word “Old” when talking about the almanacs, and from what I’ve read, I’m not alone in the confusion between the two.
So how did two Farmer’s Almanacs that have been around for more than two centuries remain so popular? And since they’re popular, how are they different? Because, surely, they wouldn’t have endured if they were the SAME, right?
While both are known for their weather predictions, gardening tips, recipes, and humor, they have their differences, too.
Here’s a quick comparison:
Founding:
Old Farmer’s Almanac – founded in 1792 (when George Washington was president!)
Farmers’ Almanac – founded in 1818
Weather Prediction Methods:
Old Farmer’s Almanac – Combines solar cycles, historical patterns, and satellite data
Farmers’ Almanac – Uses a secret formula based on mathematical and astronomical calculations tied to sunspots and tides, and no satellite data
Forecast Regions:
Old Farmer’s Almanac uses 18 regions in the US
Farmers’ Almanac uses 7 climate zones
Style:
Old Farmer’s Almanac blends science and tradition
Farmers’ Almanac has a faith-based, folklore tone
Modern Day:
Old Farmer’s Almanac has embraced the digital world with the use of apps, a website, YouTube, and social media
Farmers’ Almanac has a more limited digital usage.
Therein lies the biggest difference of all–and the reason for the Old Farmer’s Almanac’s long-standing duration.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac’s ability to adapt to new technology (while still keeping its friendly tone) is the reason why it is North America’s oldest continuously published periodical. Unfortunately, for the Farmers’ Almanac, rising production costs, declining print sales, and the failure to move toward a more aggressive digital presence was its downfall.
For more detailed information on the Old Farmer’s Almanac, check out my sister filly, Linda Broday’s, blog from a couple of years ago.
https://petticoatsandpistols.com/2024/01/16/the-oldest-continuously-run-publication-in-america/
To win a copy of your choice of the 2026 version of the Old Farmer’s Almanac or the Farmers’ Almanac (if available – it’s currently out of stock, no doubt due to the sentimentality of its final issue), tell me . . .
Have you or someone in your past read the (Old) Farmer’s Almanac? Did you rely on its weather predictions? Have you tried any of their recipes or household hints?
To stay up on our latest releases and have some fun, too, join our Facebook Reader Group HERE!
Howdy, y’all!
Penny here.
I am so honored to be a guest again on Petticoats & Pistols. This time, I’m taking us on a “look” into the past regarding eyeglasses.
In my book Love on the Horizon, our hero, hunky farmer Timothy Shepherdson, discovers he needs spectacles—ones far better than those he purchased from a traveling peddler that only seem to blur things even more.
I researched spectacles in the late 1800s and discovered eyeglasses were not seen as a positive. Instead, for men, especially, they indicated one was elderly or frail. I expounded on that for Timothy, a handsome young farmer in his twenties who did all he could to avoid wearing his new Brazilian pebble spectacles.
Eyeglasses, just as today, were pricey. Today, we can expect to pay $200-$500 per pair. In the late 1800s, fourteen-karat gold eyeglasses ranged from $4.50 to $8 per pair. Timothy, as a poor farmer, could not afford such an extravagance. Thankfully, he was offered a pair of Brazilian pebble glasses for $2.50.
Lorgnette glasses were popular, especially for women. These include a handle to be held to the face with one hand. Because they were not “fixed” on your nose with handles wrapped around your ears, they could be discarded at any time. Would Timothy want such a pair?
Miss Tudor’s titter echoed in the small room. “Oh, Father, you know a man such as Timothy Shepherdson would not cotton to a pair of lorgnettes.”
Timothy had no idea what the doctor was talking about. “I’m afraid I’m unfamiliar with that type.”
Dr. Tudor, who had joined his daughter in her amusement, temporarily sobered. “You may be aware of opera glasses.”
“I’m afraid I’ve never been to an opera.”
“Lorgnette spectacles possess a handle, and you hold them up to your face.”
Timothy could do nothing to hide his shock. He tugged on his collar, wishing it were looser around his neck. “My apologies, sir, but that will never do. I work long hours on my farm, and I need both of my arms.”
I found an interesting article regarding proper etiquette at a horse show from 1897. It mentioned that lorgnettes were available with a special design for the show, a design that included a “long silver handle formed of a miniature whip”. According to the article, “This lorgnette will be all the vogue at the Horse Show.” It’s priced at $7.50.
Traveling opticians were popular in those days. However, through my research, it seemed that these doctors felt the need to clarify that they were not fly-by-night snake oil salesmen who would sell you an expensive pair of eyewear, then disappear the next day, never to be seen again. Timothy had already been down that route with the unscrupulous peddler.
I found it interesting in an advertisement from 1894 that it must have been important for potential patients to know the optician’s age, as it is referenced that Professor Arnold is 59.
I’m super excited about the release of Love on the Horizon on October 28.
When Magnolia Davenport finally sets foot in the small town filled with friendly people and a slightly aggravating, but kind and handsome man who needs spectacles, will she find the new beginning her heart craves? I invite you to take a trip to Horizon, Idaho, in this tender romance that reminds us that God is the Author of new beginnings.
Go here to snag your copy of Love on the Horizon.
I’m giving one lucky winner their choice of a paperback or ebook of Love on the Horizon. (Limited to U.S. residents only). In Love on the Horizon, Magnolia, whose dream it has always been to open her own bakery, realizes that dream when she moves to Horizon.
To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment in answer to this question: if you were living in the 1800s, what would be your profession?
Thank you for joining me today.
As a special gift, be sure to snag An Unexpected Arrival, a Wyoming Sunrise novelette, for free by going here.
Penny Zeller is known for her heartfelt stories of faith-filled happily ever afters. Her books feature tender romance, steady doses of humor, and memorable characters that stay with you long after the last page. She is a multi-published author of over three dozen books and is also a fitness instructor, loves the outdoors, and is a flower gardening addict. Penny resides with her husband and two daughters in small-town America and loves to connect with her readers at her website at http://www.pennyzeller.com
Corn Clubs
After the turn of the century, most farmers didn’t trust new technology. Their sons, however, were more receptive, and guided by agricultural teachers and researchers who hoped the latest techniques would be embraced and then adopted on the farm, they formed after-school clubs where the boys learned hands-on lessons to improve corn production.
They were allocated an acre of land, usually given by their fathers. Their leaders taught them how to improve the quality of their seeds, how better to cultivate the corn – and make some nice money besides.
In addition, they were expected to keep precise records of their yields and expenses, as well as to participate in local, regional, and state corn contests, the precursor to today’s county fairs. Any prize money won was theirs to keep, as well as any profits made from their acre plot. With these funds, the boys were able to help their families with purchases otherwise deemed unaffordable–clothes, school supplies, and fun extras. Once their successes were observed, the corn clubs provided their seed to local farmers, boosting economies.
Eventually, the corn clubs expanded to include different crops and even livestock, peanuts, cotton, and potatoes, all through the successful concept of teaching young boys important agricultural skills.
Hey, what about the girls?
Not long after, notable women like Jane McKimmon Simpson, a home economist from North Carolina, and rural schoolteacher, Marie Samuella Cromer, also from the South, recognized the importance of the boys club successes and that they could, indeed, be applied to young girls. They chose to focus on tomatoes, since cultivating them were not as strenuous as raising corn (running a plow down the fields would have required far too much upper body strength). The women and girls, eager to add to the family’s support at a time when most farms didn’t have running water or electricity, loved the idea of harvesting tomatoes, and soon Tomato Clubs flourished.
Burdensome? I think I’d resent that!
Tomato Clubs
Tomato Club members were aged about 12 – 18 years and cultivated individual plots of 1/10 acre. They worked in groups to can and market their produce, and like the boys, kept the profits.
Since most housewives were accustomed to buying tins instead of glass jars, the clubs focused on canning the tomatoes in #3 size tin or steel containers, sealing them with solder. While the Mason jar had been invented, access to a pressure canner and the jars themselves was scarce.
Like the boys, the girls were required to document their work in multi-page reports, giving them a female touch with uniquely decorated covers, some tied with ribbons, and all precisely written.
One young lady named Lizzie reported harvesting 2,000 pounds of tomatoes and selling 800 #3 size cans, earning a profit of $78 (about $2,470 today). Some serious cash for a young girl in the early 1900s, right? Good for her!
Another young lady in 1913, Sadie, wrote, “A girl can make money for herself if she desires and still stay right on the farm.”
Another in 1915 writes, “It has been a way by which I could not only have my own spending money and pay my expenses at the Farm Camp, but I also have a bank account of sixty dollars.” (About $1,881 today.)
As you may have guessed, corn clubs and tomato clubs (as well as potato clubs, bee clubs, poultry clubs, and so on!) were the precursor for 4-H Clubs, which over time evolved beyond agriculture to fostering leadership, personal growth, and all kinds of life skills.
Have you ever been in a club while growing up? Did you find it meaningful and educational or more social? Did you have 4-H groups at your school?
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Among the gifts I received for Christmas this year were flour sack towels. Three of them, to be exact. Two were sweetly embroidered for my husband and me by our young granddaughters, and the third was screen-printed with a Christmas-themed gingerbread man with a stack of books from my sister.
With this towel came a slip of paper noting the history and benefits of flour sack towels. Of course, I suspect we all have a flour sack towel or two in our kitchen drawers right now, and we all probably have a pretty good idea how the towels came to be, but I especially found interesting the foresightedness of feed companies that led to their practical use and popularity.
I didn’t realize just how widespread that popularity was!
In 1850 or so, flour was shipped and sold in big wooden barrels to the general stores. Cumbersome and not particularly sanitary, right? About this time, cotton was more easily harvested and became plentiful. Grain mills took to shipping the flour in thick-weaved cotton bags strong enough to hold fifty pounds and later, one hundred pounds. Soon, sugar, animal feed, fertilizer, seeds, etc., followed in those bags, and it wasn’t long until frugal housewives, loathe to throw anything useful away, found new ways to use them.
Towels, aprons, diapers, bedding, and all sorts of clothing were just the beginning. But alas, who wanted to wear a shirt or a dress with the flour company’s logo branded across the front? Housewives determinedly removed the labels with rounds of soaking and washing with bleach and lye soap. After the chain stitching was pulled out of the side of the bag, the cotton could be cleaned, starched, and pressed.
(These leggings were made by a Lakota woman sometime in the 1920s using leather and dyed porcupine quills on the lower half visible below a dress. On the upper part which would be hidden by the dress, she used flour sacks from Rex Flour.)
Eventually, seeing the growing popularity of up-cycling the feed bags and seeing a potential rise in sales, manufacturers switched to paper labels. Housewives found removing the glue-backed labels with kerosene much easier but still a chore. The feed companies and flour mills took continued compassion (with an eye toward higher profits, of course) on housewives and began to print their logos using water-soluble vegetable inks.
Popularity for the bags soared in the 1920s when the cotton mills hit upon the idea of producing fabrics in colorful flower prints, designs for pillowcases and curtains, embroidery patterns, and even patterns for children’s clothing, teddy bears, dolls, and so on.
How fun, right?
(Isn’t this a pretty pillowcase? Sacks were sewn with string and a large needle, and when the sacks were taken apart, small holes were left behind. Can you see the stitching on the edge of this pillowcase?)
Women had to compete for the bags, often bringing their able-bodied sons or husbands with them to the store to maneuver through a pile of heavy sacks to get to the bottom where the choice prints could be found. Rural wives, of course, had an advantage of plenty of bags on hand to feed their livestock. Others had to collect, save, and trade to have enough yardage for their projects. Others bought larger bags called “empties” from bakers for only pennies a piece.
One 100-pound bag of feed netted a yard of 44 inch fabric. You can see how many bags would be needed for a large project or multiple clothing items.
Even President Calvin Coolidge, known for his frugality, benefited from the women’s enthusiastic creativity by receiving a gift of handmade flour-sack pajamas. It took five flour sacks to make the pajamas and were a show of support for his economic program.
During World War II, due to a shortage of cotton fabric, the government strongly encouraged use of the bags. Women sold their surplus bags for extra cash. After the war ended, rural women developed a sense of fashion from their frugality, and national sewing contests were held so they could show off their skills, netting prizes like expensive sewing machines, automobiles, or even a trip to Hollywood!
It’s easy to see how the cotton bags boosted the cotton industry. Once the sacks were cleaned and readied for use, there were as comparable in quality and design as any new percale sold in stores, thanks to top textile designers from New York City and Europe who jumped on board to produce designs with colorfast dyes. One of the earliest collections was by the Percy Kent Bag Company, still in business today in Missouri and have even done bag work for Disney films.
(Staley Milling Company of St. Louis and Kansas City was one of Percy Kent’s biggest customers. Here are packaged animal feeds in Percy Kent dress-print sacking.)
I don’t know that flour sack towels are used much to sew clothing these days, but they are the absolute best for drying dishes and being used in other ways in the kitchen. They’re fun to use in crafts, too, like stamping, painting with paint pens, screen and digital printing, all things those 19th century grain mills and the cotton industry never dreamed of!
To win a set of these pretty flour sack towels, tell me how and if you use flour sack towels for anything besides drying dishes!
Have you gotten your copy of JOY TO THE COWBOY yet? Book #2 of the Christmas Stocking Sweethearts series by the fillies!
She was sunshine. He was clouds. Until a sprig of mistletoe changed everything.
Griff Marcello must live with the shame of the crime he once committed for his mobster father. As he grows into a man, he’s found security as a cowboy living in Glory Hill, Nebraska, but the memory of his sin never leaves him.
Joyanna Hollinger is devoted to the community of Glory Hill, and with Christmas approaching, her plans for a special Christmas Eve service consumes her. All her efforts are falling into place–until she loses a key part of the celebration.
When Griff receives an unexpected gift from his former piano teacher, he never thinks her kindness will fill him with the spirit of Christmas, even when Joyanna needs him most.
Could the simplicity of a hand-stitched stocking and the Christmas carol tucked within chase away the clouds in his heart and warm him from the sunshine of Joyanna’s love?
#kindleunlimited
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Do you know what the oldest continuously published periodical is in the U.S? It’s The Old Farmer’s Almanac and goes on sale every year on the 2nd Tuesday of September. Farmers everywhere race to get a copy. It was first published in 1792 during George Washington’s first term as president. The founder and editor was Robert B. Thomas and it sold for six pence or nine cents a copy.
It originally carried the name of Farmer’s Almanac but the word “Old” was added to the title in 1848 after several other farmers almanacs came out by different companies. They needed to set theirs apart so people would know which one they were buying.
Farmers and city dwellers alike have depended on the Old Farmer’s Almanac to know when to plant and what the weather for the next year will be like. It also tells fishermen when the fish will bite. A lot of people have found it indispensable.
Robert Thomas came up with a complex formula using his observations of natural weather cycles to predict the forecast. He had amazing results and was said to be uncannily accurate 80 percent of the time. (Even today, his formula is kept locked away at the Almanac offices in Dublin, New Hampshire.)
In 1858, it’s said that Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer at the time, used the Almanac to defend his client and refuting an eyewitness who claimed to have seen the crime by the light of the moon. The Almanac recorded the moon was in the first quarter on this night and riding low in the horizon. It wouldn’t have given much light at all. Abe Lincoln won the case.
The Old Farmers Almanac has only had fourteen editors since its existence, the latest of which is the second woman to take the helm. Her name is Carol Connare and she took the reins in 2023.
In the beginning, the book focused mostly on farming but it does much more now. It has advice on gardening, cooking, and fishing in addition to lunar cycles, and horoscopes. Sometimes there is a blend of trivia and human interest stories and even recipes. You can find most anything in one of these books from anecdotes to fashion predictions for the coming year.
In 1942, the almanac came close to halting publication when a German spy came ashore on Long Island, New York and was apprehended by the FBI. They found a copy of the 1942 Old Farmer’s Almanac in his pocket. It appeared the Germans were using the Almanac as a source of weather forecasts because it was so accurate. Indirectly the book was supplying information to the enemy. From then on until the war’s end, the editor quickly changed the format to only show weather indications, not forecasts.
In September 2018, they predicted that Texas and Oklahoma would have the driest winter on record and, Lord knows, that certainly came true. The Texas Panhandle went 192 days without any moisture. I was living up there then. We had very bad fires and dangerous winds that year.
It’s very gratifying to see something that’s been around for 232 years and still going strong. It’s a great resource for writers.
Today the Old Farmer’s Almanac comes in paperback, trade size, and hard back and sells between $6.94 to $14.24 for hard back. And there’s a Kindle editor. Folks swear by the information inside each copy because it’s rarely wrong.
Have you ever or anyone you know ever used the Old Farmer’s Almanac? I’ve always found it interesting and full of valuable information. There’s wonderful recipes in it as well. I’m giving away a $15 Amazon gift card to a commenter so leave me something.
It’s not always possible to step into the shoes of a pioneer. I value a good history book that walks me through the social, political, and geographic changes of the nineteenth century. But my favorite way to research is hands on. Don’t make me read about the various ways to hitch a team of horses to a wagon. Take me out and let me hitch them myself. Don’t tell me how to make butter. Sit me down at a churn and let me make it myself. (And if I get to put it on freshly baked bread warm from the oven with raspberry preserves afterward, even better!)
So, I am blessed to have two living history museums within a short drive of my home. One is a re-creation of Fort Nisqually, the Hudson’s Bay Company outpost on Puget Sound. Though it was originally situated closer to the Nisqually Delta, in present day Dupont, some of the original buildings were moved to a wooded area in Tacoma’s Point Defiance Park, and other facsimiles were added to represent what the fort would have been like in the 1840s.
The other is Pioneer Farm Museum above the Ohop Valley, on the way to Mount Rainier. The clearing surrounded by forest re-creates an 1887 homestead, and two of the cabins date from that era. With live animals and a smithy, you can really get the feel of living on a pioneer farm. You can grind grain, scrub laundry, card wool, and even curl your hair with a curling iron heated down the chimney of an oil lamp.
Here’s a few of the things I’ve learned:
Make your space count. When you have to cut and prepare the logs, lift them into place, put in a chimney, and add a sturdy roof, you don’t build a 2,500-square-foot California split! The inside of some of these cabins is no more than about ten feet square, and the length often depended on the length of the logs available. You might have a loft or a second story, but the main room needs to do duty as parlor, dining room, kitchen, sewing room, and even bedroom.
Learn to scrape. Sugar came in cones rather than sacks. Cinnamon came in sticks. Even laundry only got clean by scrubbing it over something. Those pioneer ladies must have had strong hands, wrists, and arms!
Follow fashion judiciously. One of the first questions I asked one of the reenactors at Fort Nisqually, who was wearing a large-skirted gown from the 1850s, was about whether they employed the big hoop skirts so popular back East. She confided that petticoats were more the thing out West, and I’m not surprised. How would a pioneer lady have navigated those narrow ladders leading up to the sleeping loft or even squeezed through a door in one of those things?
Whatever I learn, I always factor into my books, and The Schoolmarm’s Convenient Marriage, out November 6, is no exception. My heroine’s schoolroom bears a close resemblance to this one from Pioneer Farm.
Alice Dennison travelled across country to start life over as a schoolteacher in Wallin Landing, north of Seattle. No one there knows the humiliation and hurt hidden in her heart. Then a storm forces her to seek shelter with a handsome logger for the night, and suddenly she’s facing marriage or scandal! Again! Jesse Willets had always hoped for a love match like his parents. But he steps up to save Alice’s reputation through a marriage of convenience. When Alice’s past intrudes, they must work together to discover that true love may not be so distant after all.
In celebration of the new release, I’m giving away a copy of Her Frontier Sweethearts (print in the U.S., ebook internationally), which introduces many of the characters in the new book. When feisty Ciara O’Rourke starts a frontier restaurant, someone thrusts a baby at her and disappears. Logger Kit Weatherly will do anything to protect the niece he never knew he had. Can he convince Ciara to take a chance on them both?
To be entered in the drawing, answer this question: How do you prefer to learn about history?
Bio
Regina Scott started writing novels in the third grade. Thankfully for literature as we know it, she didn’t sell her first novel until she learned a bit more about writing. Since her first book was published, her stories have traveled the globe, with translations in many languages including Dutch, German, Italian, and Portuguese. She now has more than sixty-five published works of warm, witty romance, and more than 1 million copies of her books are in reader hands. She currently lives forty-five minutes from the gates of Mount Rainier with her husband of thirty years. Regina Scott has dressed as a Regency dandy, driven four-in-hand, learned to fence, and sailed on a tall ship, all in the name of research, of course. Learn more about her at her website at http://www.reginascott.com
It’s fall!
I recently read a wonderful book I couldn’t put down and that has stayed with me since turning the last page. As I often do when I’ve finished a book I loved (or one I hated), I go online and read reviews to see if people agree with me and if they don’t, why. Most reviewers raved about this book and felt the same as I did. There were a few one-star reviews, however, and I read those with curiosity. How could someone not like this awesome book?
One reviewer who gave one star stated they were annoyed by the main character constantly shouting, “Gee, gee,” at the mule she rode, calling the word gibberish. This was apparently enough for the reviewer to bash the book. I was shocked. As someone who’s owned mules, I know that ‘gee’ is a vocal command for equine, most frequently draft horses and mules, meaning turn right, and ‘haw’ means turn left. The main character in the book wasn’t shouting gibberish at her mule but rather instructing it.
Me being me, I decided to do a little research on vocal commands for equine. Turns out, horses, ponies, donkeys, and mules are quite smart and can learn a number of commands, including recognizing their name and coming when called. They aren’t the only ones. Bovine, such as cows and oxen, are also capable of learning commands. Goats, too. Pigs are incredibly smart. I once had a pot-bellied pig named Queenie who knew how to sit, stay, come, lie down, and followed me around like a dog.
So, what are the most common vocal commands? Because, you know, you can teach your horse or oxen or goat any command you want. But here are the ones people tend to use:
Whoa: Stop
Clucking: Go or move up a gait
Kissing noise: Go or move up a gait
Move out: Go
Step Lively: Pick up the pace
Walk: Walk
Trot: Trot
Canter: Canter
Gallop: Gallop
Easy: Slow and steady
Stand: Remain standing
Wait: Stay put
Back: Back up
Gee: Turn right
Haw: Turn left
Over: Move sideways or sidestep
Quit: Stop whatever you’re doing
Most horses are taught vocal commands on lunge line in or out of a round pen. Draft equine, oxen, and goats will more likely be trained by walking behind with a set of long reins. Just like teaching a dog, livestock learn well with the reward system. A treat and/or fond petting for a job well done.
What does all this mean? Well, for one, the saying, “Dumb as an ox,” is probably wrong. Seems oxen are kinda smart. Stubborn as a mule, however? That one is one hundred percent true. If a mule doesn’t respond to voice commands, it’s not because he doesn’t understand or is dumb. He’s just refusing!
Today I wanted to share a story I wrote early last spring:
I talked last week about how slippery it has been in our pasture—especially with a skift of snow on top of a thin layer of ice on top of some wet mud.
We got a lot of rain last Monday night, so our creek was swollen, the pastures were saturated, and it was too muddy and slick for even Watson to drive through, so we walked out to check the cows.
We have around twenty cows that should freshen in the next six weeks or so, so we’re keeping a pretty close eye on them.
Tuesday morning, Watson fed the cows, then he came back to the house and got me.
Now, I talked some about Watson last week. He’s a machinery guy. He loves tractors and equipment and anything with a motor and wheels. He knows them, understands them, and is really intuitive at driving and fixing them.
I’m kinda the cow person.
Watson loves his cows. I mean, really, he loves them, but when it comes to actually knowing about them, that’s really me.
Anyway, it was too wet and muddy to drive, so we had to walk. I think that’s why he wanted me, but also in case we had a cow with a calf. I have a better knack for knowing what to do in a pinch, if that makes sense.
We have about ten or so cows who were bred to a Hereford bull who are going to freshen in the next few weeks—four of them already have. These cows will have black-bodied calves with white faces.
Our other cows who are going to freshen will have solid black calves. They’ve been bred to our Jesse James/Penn State bull, and these calves are going to be really nice beef.
So, as Watson and the two little girls and I were walking through the herd while they were eating the hay on the ground, we’re looking at the cows we know are going to calve and we’re counting the little white-faced calves. Watson and I think there should be four, one of our girls is insisting there should be five.
Ha.
So, we’re trying to figure that out, and we’ve counted three so far and we’re missing the solid black heifer that had been born the day before and was a little sluggish. We thought she’d eaten, but I like to keep an eye on them for a couple of days and make sure they can find their lunch okay. Also, we’d gotten a lot of rain overnight. We wanted to lay eyes on her and make sure she was good.
Well, we couldn’t find her—she wasn’t with the herd, and her mama, 116A, was down by the creek bawling.
Also, as we continued to head toward the creek, we realized there was another cow—122—who was down there bawling, too, and who hadn’t had her calf when we’d checked them Monday night.
So, we have two cows down by the creek—116A has a calf we can’t find, and 122 MUST have a calf, although we haven’t seen it yet. Cows on grass and hay aren’t really like women. I know I need to be careful here, because you can’t always tell when a lady has had a baby, but…let me say it like this: grass-fed cows have hay bellies, while grain-fed cows are usually sleeker with less of a barrel look.
And…moving RIGHT along, LOL, Watson and the girls and I reach the creek on the bottom corner of the pasture, and we start walking up along it, looking. It’s cold, and there are patches of snow on the ground, but the ground isn’t frozen and mud sucks at our feet with every step.
The girls get ahead of us (because, kids, right? LOL), and Watson and I are talking strategy and where we’d last seen 116A and her little girl and why we’d decided she’d eaten and where we think she might be.
So, the girls get about halfway across the pasture with Watson and I about twenty yards behind them.
They yell back, “We found one!” and Watson and I get to the bend in the creek and see the little heifer we were worried about, lying down at the edge of the creek at the bottom of a six-foot drop-off.
Now, I mentioned we’d gotten a lot of rain the night before. The creek is up—although not like it’s been in the past—it’s muddy and deep, but it wouldn’t be over my head and the current wouldn’t sweep me away. But it would be strong enough to knock a newborn calf down. Or, more likely, if the calf were to fall, the current would be strong enough to keep it from getting back up, since newborns have trouble balancing anyway.
The girls are ahead of us, and they go about fifteen yards up the creek to where the bank slopes down. We just need the heifer to get up and walk those fifteen yards to get out of the creek.
Well, the girls haven’t chased cows much, and I guess they really don’t realize how precarious the situation is.
They run to the slope, and my youngest plows into the water, splashing across (and realizing it’s a little deeper than she was expecting—over her boots).
The other girl is a little older, and she goes more slowly, which seems wise, but maybe wasn’t, because the mud is pretty deep there, and she gets both of her boots stuck in the mud.
The girls have made a lot of noise (they’re girls—there is laughing and giggling and squealing as they get wet and stuck), and the calf has gotten up and started running—in the exact wrong direction—and the creek goes from about 1-1/2 feet deep to about 3 feet deep.
It trips.
Its head goes under the water.
I race toward the bank, and I do something I never do—I yell at the girls.
I yell at my youngest to turn and face the bank (a cow will always choose to avoid a face, but they will run toward a back. I don’t know why, but this is a truth), and I yell at my other daughter to get out of there, because the calf isn’t going to run in that direction while she’s standing at the only spot where it can get out.
I didn’t realize that both of her feet are stuck, and in fact, as I look, I realize that she’s lost a boot and has one stocking foot in the freezing cold water of the creek while she’s trying to pull her other foot out, which is still stuck in the mud.
She yells, “I’ve lost a boot, and my other foot is stuck!”
I yell back (at the same time the calf has gotten its head out of the water and I’m reaching down the six-foot bank—I REALLY don’t want to go in the water—and waving my hand in front of its face, and I’ve gotten it partially turned, but it doesn’t want to move forward because my daughter is RIGHT where it needs to go), “Forget about your boot and get out of there!”
The water is icy—my daughter yanked her second foot out of her stuck boot and is now in two stocking feet struggling through the knee-deep mud to get out of the way—the calf is shivering and exhausted, and I’m shaking because while I didn’t run that far—only thirty yards or so—the mud was sucking at my feet the whole time and my legs feel like Jello, partly because I’m not used to running with suction cups on the bottoms of my feet and partly because my brain has already gone to pneumonia—in the calf and the girl—and I don’t want to watch this baby drown right in front of me.
I’m on my hands and knees on the bank waving my hands trying to get the calf to turn around. As my daughter leaves her boots behind and scrambles up the slope, she scares the calf, and it turns and starts back toward the deep water.
My youngest daughter scooted along the edge of the bank—with her back toward the calf—until she was well behind it, and she splashes across the creek toward the calf as Watson hands me a long stick.
Between us, we get the calf moving, and we pass the stuck boots as the calf climbs tremulously out of the bank and is reunited with her mother.
I go back and slide down the slope, grabbing first one boot, then the other, and pull them out of the mud. I’ve done that multiple times—lost my boots in mud. I’ve actually completely lost a pair of sneakers—like lost, lost, where I couldn’t find them. [And I’m saying mud, but where there are cows… : ) ]
I help my daughter get her boots back on, apologize to both of them for yelling at them—they said I could do it once every decade or so, LOL—and I send them up to the house to get out of their wet clothes and get dry, asking them to go by way of the deep gully and make sure there aren’t any calves in it, because, while we’ve gotten 116A and her calf reunited, 122 is bawling like her heart is broken, and we haven’t seen any sign of hers yet.
Watson and I follow the creek up to the other end of the pasture—he crosses it, and even in this normally shallow spot, the water is over the tops of his boots—and we walk both banks the entire way back down the pasture, checking the woods on the other side, in case it crossed the creek and got through the fence, and looking at the few spots along the creek where it might have gotten tangled up in tree roots.
Okay, I’m going to be blunt now and admit I’m also looking for any sign of black hair waving in the water. Our calves might be 60-80 pounds when they’re born, give or take, but newborns don’t have great balance, and it doesn’t take much—a little bit of current—to knock them down.
I know, if a calf fell in the creek the way it was up from all the rain, it would get carried downstream and drown on its way down. The body would be hung up on a rock or a root or a bunch of debris. Even though it was still muddy, I could tell the creek had gone down some from its overnight high, and I figured if the calf was born even a few hours before—or more—the current and depth would have been worse.
122 is still standing at the same spot—right beside the creek, almost in the middle of the pasture—bawling while Watson and I slowly walk the entire length of the pasture.
When I reach the fence, I climb through it into the next pasture. The creek flows the whole way around the bottom of that pasture and on through another one before it empties into the river. Watson says, “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to follow the creek on down.”
He kind of looks at me. I say, “Did you check the woods real good? The calf will be able to get through the fence while the mom can’t. It could be up there holed up in the woods.”
“If it’s up there, we’ll never find it.”
“Well, we have to, because she obviously has no idea where it is.”
He looks at me again, and then he looks down the creek where I’m going. It’s cold out, but I’m hot. I have sweat running down my back, which should make me shiver, but while I feel the trickle along my skin, I’m not cold.
I don’t have a good feeling—that upset stomach feeling that your heart gets when you know things just aren’t going to turn out the way you want.
Watson knows if I go down the creek and find the calf, it’s just going to be a body.
Watson doesn’t give up much better than I do.
He grits his jaw and looks back the way he just came. Then he calls over the creek, “I’m going to go back up through and just focus on the woods. It’s gotta be there somewhere.”
We both know it doesn’t have to be there.
It could be downstream.
I jerk my chin, then start slowly through the next pasture, following the creek, looking hard at any place along the edge where a calf might have pulled itself out and be lying there shivering.
I’m also looking at the water, watching for a wave of black fur. Or the graceful lift of a limp little tail moving up and down with the current.
I’ve made it a slow thirty yards—the creek deepens, and I’m really searching the water for a black shadow, when I’m scanning up the creek and I see Watson walking toward me.
I think he knows too. He looks all tough, but honestly, he’s softer than I am about this kind of thing.
He changed his mind, obviously, about going back up, and I don’t ask why, but I guess it’s because he doesn’t want me to find the body by myself.
We slowly walk downstream, across the creek from each other, him on one side, me on the other, going slow through this deeper part.
Watson swears.
My eyes fly to his face, judge the trajectory of his gaze, and go back to the water while my heart falls.
I’m still searching.
“It’s right there,” Watson says, and I see the fur, lifted by the current, before it falls again. The body is almost completely submerged.
Watson climbs down the bank, fishes in the water for a hoof, and drags a big, beautiful, dead bull calf out of the muddy water.
Up the creek, in the other pasture, 122’s bawling cry cuts through the air again, and as I stand there looking at her baby, I know she’ll be bawling all day today and all night and all day tomorrow, standing up there by the creek and hoping her baby comes back.
Of course, he’s not going to.
Now, I don’t know what everyone else thinks when something like this happens. Maybe they don’t. It’s probably easier that way. But I’m looking at the calf and I’m running through my mind, trying to figure out what we could have done to have saved him.
“What a waste,” Watson says. 122 bawls again. “She raised one of our best-looking steers last year.”
It’s pretty heartbreaking to hear her cry and to stand there looking at her baby and knowing her distress is in vain, but I’m not going to cry, and I’m not going to get angry (at what???), although I kind of feel like I want to do either or both.
“Man, this reeks,” Watson says, frustrated.
I agree, and I can hardly stand to hear 122. But I say, “I know the upper pasture is smaller and it’s going to be a muddy mess, but I think we should move the whole herd up there, close the gate, and keep them there. That way they only have access to about fifteen yards of the creek, and it’s all shallow.”
Watson is probably having just as hard a time as I am listening to 122. “I’ll feed them up there tonight, and we’ll shut the gate while they’re eating.”
We walk up and get the Gator—this pasture isn’t as muddy as the other—and we go down and drive across the creek, stopping where the calf is over the bank.
Watson goes down and grabs a leg; I stay up and pull Watson’s other hand as we drag it up the bank and over to the Gator.
He takes the front legs and I take the back, and we swing him up. He’s heavy, and I can barely get my end up. We stand there and look at him—a nice, beefy bull calf and a hard loss, from a business perspective and from a heart perspective.
Finally, Watson says, “I guess if it were all peaches and cream, everyone would be doing it.” He pushes away from the Gator and moves to the door. “Just gotta take the hit and move on. It stinks, though.”
Which, of course, reminded me of a verse from the Bible which also reminded me of something God’s nudged me about more than once over the years—that struggle and hardship and loss make us stronger, and they also make us appreciate our success more, as well as help us to put things that aren’t quite as important into better perspective.
It’s a lesson I need over and over, because any time things get hard, it’s always tempting to quit, to complain, and to pray that God gets me out of this or at least fixes it for me.
It happens with our kids, too, right? We want to fix everything for them. We hate seeing them suffer. We want to pad the playground and keep anything bad from ever happening to them. But just as God allows the rain to fall in our lives, we’re doing our kids a disservice if we protect them from the rain in theirs.
It’s funny because that night, Julia had an issue she was talking to me about, and as she was leaving my room, she said, “I love talking to you because you always make me realize that my problems aren’t as bad as I think they are. You’re just so chill.”
Ha. That was kinda funny to me since I had just yelled at the other girls that day, but that really is another good thing that comes from walking through pain and loss. We get to share the (very small bit of) wisdom we’ve learned with others. It’s a good feeling.
That’s actually just the tip of the iceberg of the week that we had last week, but again, the pain and the loss and the suffering is hard, but it’s always for our good.
Thanks so much for spending time with me this week!