The 2-Under-2 Zoo: Soon to add a Fourth!: Evie and the Heifers

I just realized that I still haven't blogged about this and I'm kinda annoyed with myself since I have been drawing blanks most days on blog ideas. And all this time I had this one, with cute pictures to boot, and didn't even realize I hadn't already written it! What does that say about my state of mind? That I really thought I had already written this post? Probably bad things. I blame sleep deprivation. Babies do that to ya.

So, anyways, on Mother's Day we went to my grandmother's house. It was truly the highlight of my day. Well, my grandmother's house and the fantabulous brie and bacon quiche that I made for breakfast that morning.

My grandparents live near the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Appalachian Mountains. In case you don't live around here, is pronounced "Apple-latch-an" not "apple-lay-shan." I grew up there. And no one in the Appalachian mountains prounouces it like you outsiders do. So stop. You are driving me crazy. My grandparents and great grandparents lived on the family land my entire life and quite a bit before that. Unfortunately my great grandparents passed away when I was in college and my grandmother sold their house but the land is all still in the family. On that land my family has pretty much always had cattle. Beef cattle in fact.

My uncle owns the cattle these days. He and his wife make the daily rounds feeding and checking the cows, heifers, and calves. The solitary Angus bull lives in a small pasture by himself near their home when he's not in with the cows doing his job. The cows and calves are spread across different pastures depending on the time of year and what's going on with them. My uncle doesn't just sell steers and heifers for beef anymore. These days you make more money as a small family operated farm by selling heifers to big farmers for breeding. Or so I'm told. So my uncle and aunt spend a lot of time artificially inseminating heifer with sperm from award-winning bloodline bulls from around the country. Then raising those calves to sell to big farmers.

My uncle has mostly Angus blood in his herds now. But there are still some white faced calves with Hereford blood. The white-faced calves are my favorite. I personally love Herefords, the red cows with white faces, but Black Baldies, black cows with white faces (acheived by breeding Angus and Herefords), are pretty adorable too. My great grandfather had a few Brahman cattle in his herd. I remember those cows quite clearly because they were incredibly mean for some reason. Brahman look very exotic with their hump at their shoulders. The bull he had when I was little was incredibly huge. My second cousin inherited those cattle from Pa Booker, and as far as I know several of the cows still have some Brahman heritage. I don't know if they are any more docile these days or not.

(**Note: Heifer are females that have never had calves. Cows are females. Bulls are males. Calves are babies. Steers are bulls that have been castrated. Just to catch you up on the terminology...**)

I grew up around livestock. I have never thought much about the process of feeding cattle or taking care of farm business because I grew up with it. I learned that day that not everyone has such experience. My step dad and husband were somewhat in awe watching the cows trot across the pasture when they heard my uncle's truck crank. Cattle recognize the sound of the vehicle that feeds them, be it a truck, tractor, or whatever, and when they hear that bad boy coming...they come running. Andreas and Josh have never spent any time on a farm (City boys...lol) and just marvelled at that. The whole experience for them seemed pretty impressive. It was a little funny to me. I can't imagine not knowing all these things about farm life.

Of course Evie had an excuse. For one, she's not even two. And she hasn't spent any time yet on a farm. For another, she loves all animals and cows to her seem like big dogs. She stood at the fence and mooed at the cows. Laughing and talking to them. She put her hand through the fence and beckoned to the cows. Of course, they were super freaked out by these little person shrieking and mooing at them and huddled together a safe distance away to observe her.

Once they were fed they pretty much paid us zero mind. No matter what Evie did. But she was still pretty happy with the experience. Even if she didn't get to pet a cow like she wanted to. She stood at the fence and mooed and shrieked and waved. Happy as could be.

It was really neat to watch Evie savoring her farm experience. That is definitely one of my favorite parts of having kids...one of many of course. But watching them experience new things and seeing their reactions and how they learn and grow. It's just amazing.