by Amanda Owen
The bull ran with the herd in the winter, and we’d write when each cow was bulled in a diary, so we would have an estimated calf delivery date. When this time was upon us, the cows would be let back into the smaller pastures where they could be kept under closer observation. The Beck Stack or the Cow Pasture was the preferred field as it had shelter in the form of a barn and a small beck that never ran dry. It grew sweet grass and had undulations and gullies that afforded privacy to the mother-to-be who invariably wished to make herself scarce when in labour, her most vulnerable time and the only period that she really wished to be well away from the rest of the herd. After consulting the diary, it looked like we could expect our first happy event in September and, sure enough, that was when Eartha, one of our older beasts, began to show signs that she was getting near to her due date.
‘Aye, she’s warmin’ noo,’ I said, after I’d been up to feed the herd with a bale of year-over hay that had been earmarked for them. It consisted mostly of rushes and none of the other animals would have eaten it, but the cows would happily pick through it. Waste not, want not.
Her belly was distended, taut and stretched, her udder now full, though unevenly so. She had, in the mists of time, lost one of her quarters due to mastitis, but it proved to be of no hindrance to have only three out of her four teats producing milk. Any calf worth its salt would soon realize that when it latched on to the smaller, harder, front-passenger side teat it would not get a bellyful of milk, and frustration and pangs of hunger would soon send it looking for alternatives.
‘It’s nae sort coo that cannae rear a cawf on three cylinders,’ Clive had wisely said.
Eartha had lumbered towards me and I could see she certainly hadn’t lost her appetite, for she took a mouthful of hay and slowly chewed whilst studying me intently.
‘It’s time that we let yer through that gate and into’t land where I can keep an eye on yer,’ I muttered to myself.
Easier said than done, it was only going to happen with bribery, and a bale of rushy hay was not going to be anywhere near enough. I found more-edible temptation in the meal house – a bag of mollassed mixed cereals usually reserved for the tup shearlings going to sale. Clive and I went back to the allotment gate and looked at the cows some hundred yards away on a bare knoll, still hoovering up the last few wisps of hay.
‘We’ll let ’em all through’t gate,’ said Clive. ‘It’ll be easier than trying to separate Eartha from ’em.’
‘Coosh lasses,’ I shouted, then shook the feed bag. They put their heads up and stared intently – even Eartha seemed to have temporarily stopped chewing.
In this situation, one of two things might happen. In the ideal scenario, their inquisitive and greedy nature would bring them over and I could get them to follow me – and the food – quietly and calmly through the gate. The other possibility is that, rather than smell the molassed cereals, they smell a rat, panic and take off at high speed up the field. This time, greed got the better of them and the twelve cows ambled towards me.
‘Coosh lasses,’ I said again as I rattled the bag and stepped backwards towards the gate that would let them into the Beck Stack. They behaved impeccably, no rushing or barging at the gate, no one refusing to follow, they executed the move as peacefully as one could have hoped. I gave them their reward, a long line of feed on the grass, whilst Clive tied the gate shut, looping baler twine over the wall cheek topstone.
‘Grand,’ he said. ‘Now we knaw where we ’ave ’em.’
Bovine surveillance now began in earnest. From the packhorse bridge, an observer could see almost all of the field, count the cows and hopefully reach twelve. The children would count before school and again after school when they got off the bus. Secretly, I hoped that one day there would be thirteen and Eartha would have done what most native breed cattle do: give birth naturally to a healthy calf without any need for interference.
Alas, it was not to be. Four days later, Clive went to an evening meeting at Keld, and Miles and I set off to do the last check of the day before turning in. We stood on the bridge and counted the cows; all were present and correct, although one of them appeared to have distanced itself from the others and was up at the top of the field.
‘Ach, look see, I bet it’s Eartha, her time’s comin’,’ I said to Miles.
We set off, chattering about nothing in particular. The exertion of the uphill walk meant that talk had dwindled to nothing by the time we reached the top wall where we’d last seen Eartha. It was a beautiful, breathlessly calm evening. The light was fading fast, the nights were now drawing in, and already there was a freshness in the air that filled your nostrils, cleared your head and sharpened your senses. We both stood quietly, surveying the scene. The rest of the herd were in below us, out of sight, but somewhere amongst these rushes and scrubby grass was Eartha.
I shivered, then gestured to Miles, who was crouched at the wall back, to be quiet. We followed the wall, Miles taking a slightly different line but parallel to me. He had only walked a few yards when he stopped in his tracks, waved and pointed towards a wide-open dry ditch. Standing quite still, staring fixedly ahead and right at us, was Eartha. Her tail swished violently and rhythmically back and forth as she shifted her weight from one hind leg to the other.
‘There’s gonna be a calf soon,’ I said to Miles.
Her belly twitched, a kick from within prompting her to turn her head around and look down at herself quizzically, as if to see where the movement had come from. She let out an audible sigh and then went back to chewing the cud.
The physical signs of an imminent calving were all there and, not wanting to interfere or upset what seemed to be the early stages of a straighforward labour, we left.
‘How lang does ta think it’ll be?’ said Miles as we picked our way back down the hill towards home.
‘An hour or two yet,’ I said, since there was nothing to be seen under Eartha’s tail, no sign of any hooves.
‘Can I com’ back wi’ yer to check ’er a bit later?’ asked Miles.
We agreed that when Dad came back from the meeting, we would all go and see that everything was going along smoothly. While Miles did his homework, I paced up and down like an expectant parent myself, looking at the clock, drinking tea and willing Clive to come back so that we could all set off and see that Eartha was all right.
‘It’s no good,’ I announced, ‘I cannae wait any langer.’
An hour and a half had passed, the light had all but gone, and there was no sign of Clive. I put on a head torch, Miles found a flashlight and we set off back to the field. This time we knew where we were heading, and we were feeling buoyant, confident even, that Eartha would be well into labour or ideally have already given birth to a healthy, strong calf.
The dismay I felt when we finally reached her was indescribable, for there she was, laid on her side, her head arched backwards and legs splayed but with absolutely nothing to show for all her straining.
‘Christ Almighty,’ I said.
‘What we gonna do?’ Miles asked.
And that was an excellent question because I wasn’t quite sure myself. I decided that we should have a tentative examination to see if we could find the problem. The absence of any hooves was worrying, but if we could confirm that the calf was presented correctly then we would have to assume that it was a male and its size was the issue. Heifer calves, even as newborns, tend to be a little more delicate than the bulls. The other scenario was malpresentation, which could be anything from the unborn calf having a leg bent back to it being a breech, coming tail first.
Miles and I both quietly walked to Eartha’s head. Her wide, unblinking eyes told us she clearly wasn’t happy but the way she swung her head around as she saw us approaching illustrated that she was still feeling feisty.
‘You’re gonna ’ave to keep her laid for me Miley, mi lad,’ I said.
‘’Ow am I gonna . . .’ he started to protest, shining the flashlight on the heaving hummock of a cow.
&
nbsp; ‘Like this,’ I said, and in one deft move sprang towards Eartha and grabbed her nose tightly, my forefinger and thumb up either nostril. Holding her head sideways, keeping the pressure on, rendered her immobile. She could not rise with her head looking backwards. It was not strength that was required, just a stubborn refusal to let go.
Bless little Miles, he never faltered. Positioning the flashlight in a rush bob so that he could see what he was doing, he crouched beside me, one knee resting on the now-damp grass and the other gently on Eartha’s neck, and got her nostril firmly gripped.
She snorted defiantly, and Miles looked disgustedly at the snot on his fingers.
‘’Urry up, Mam,’ he said.
I nipped around to the back end. Lying down, I pushed her tail aside and felt around. There was a pair of front hooves just out of sight but no sign of a nose. Diving position is what you’d hope to find but, in this case, the fact that there was no sign of a head made me think that there was something wrong, perhaps the head was lolling to one side or perhaps there just wasn’t enough room. At least we now knew what we were up against.
‘Right, we need to ga an’ ring t’vet, Miles.’
Miles released his grip and grabbed his torch. Eartha, I daresay with a crick in her neck, sat up like a dog for a moment and then limbered up.
It was now a full-on emergency, and as Miles and I hurried back home, I was glad to see the lights of the Land Rover coming down the road.
‘Whassup?’ asked Clive, as I stood at the farmhouse door, bent over to catch my breath.
‘Eartha’s stuck a-calvin’,’ said Miles.
Clive launched into a tirade, ranting about how the moment your back was turned something disastrous would occur.
‘Yah munt crib mi for it. I feel wretched enough as it is,’ I said, wishing to hell that I had realized earlier what was afoot.
To try and get the vet, and all the tools required, half a mile up a steep field in the darkness, and then have no lights or any way of restraining a cow, was going to make this job difficult if not impossible. We agreed that we should try and get Eartha into the barn in the field, at least then we could fasten her into one of the stalls with a halter and we could, in theory, take the quad bike, park it by the door and use its headlights to illuminate the dark recesses of the building.
Clive and I went to load the quad bike with things that we thought may prove useful – a halter, calving ropes and a small quantity of feed in the bottom of a bag – and Miles went to ring the vet, pleased to have been tasked with an important job that didn’t involve a stressed-out cow. Within minutes, we were good to go. The older children had, as they always do, taken responsibility for the younger ones and were now busy showering, bathing and putting the babies to bed. Miles had spoken to Willy, the vet on call, and had given him a very brief rundown on the situation. Apparently, the conversation went like this:
Willy: ‘Hello, emergency vet, how can I help?’
Miles: ‘We’ve got a coo stuck a-calvin’.’
Willy: ‘Where?’
Miles: ‘Up in t’Beck Stack, Coo Pasture yonder.’
Willy: ‘Who am I speaking to?’
Miles: ‘Miles frae t’Ravenseat.’
Willy was already out on a call, a caesarian on a cow at a dairy farm near Appleby. He couldn’t come straight away but he would ring when he had finished the operation to see if any progress had been made. Miles had to man the phone and await his call.
Clive and I set off back to our patient. We jumped off the quad bike and I strode confidently through the rushes towards where Eartha had last been seen.
‘Oh, great,’ I muttered, ‘she’s gone.’
It might seem like the simplest thing in the world to be able to find a substantially sized – and I mean a half ton – cow in a field, but what followed was more than four hours of hunting high and low. We searched methodically, starting where Miles and I had left her.
The night sky was clear but, though the moon cast a little light over the terrain, it was still ridiculously difficult to keep our bearings. I switched my head torch off to see whether my eyes would adjust to the blackness but, even after a minute or two of standing quietly, I could pick out little more than an outline of the drystone wall on the horizon.
Clive had set off to the farthest corner of the field and I could see the beam of his flashlight sweeping from side to side as he searched amongst the rushes. I stumbled and tripped my way along, the head torch back on. Occasionally, I’d put up a pheasant or partridge, and my heart would miss a beat at the resulting squawk and flapping of wings as the bird disappeared off into the darkness. My ears tried desperately to pick up any kind of noise that might reveal Eartha’s whereabouts. The presence of the other eleven cows, as well as a handful of sheep, didn’t help matters. To see in the torchlight the reflection of a pair of green eyes staring nonchalantly back at me would momentarily fill me with hope that I’d found my missing cow but, in the end, we accounted for every single member of the herd apart from Eartha. As soon as my presence was deemed to be of no significance, the cows would look away and resume their cudding while the sheep would turn tail and scoot away into the undergrowth.
‘Anything?’ shouted an increasingly exasperated Clive.
‘Nowt so far,’ I shouted back.
We decided that the next course of action should be to use the quad bike to search the flatter bottom-half of the field. What with the bike headlights beaming straight ahead and me riding shotgun, shining the torch to the side, we could cover the ground faster. We did a couple of sweeps, didn’t locate Eartha, but did find every single rut in the field. We jolted and bounced along, Clive cussing under his breath whilst I held on for dear life.
After that we decided to return to the farmhouse to give Willy the somewhat embarrassing message that our labouring cow was missing and that we would ring him when we had found, and apprehended, the patient. Back we went, through the gate, and homeward bound.
I made the call to Willy whilst Clive made tea. It was nearly midnight and the bigger children were still awake and eager to come and help. I promised that I would get them when we found Eartha but, for the moment, I needed them to stay put and watch over their sleeping siblings.
‘I can’t believe it,’ I muttered in between sips of tea. ‘I knaw that field like t’back of mi hand an’ yet in t’dark I’m completely lost.’
We agreed that we would return for one more attempt, taking a feed bag and giving it a shake to see if the promise of food would tempt Eartha out of hiding. Personally, I didn’t think that food would be at the forefront of her mind, but these were desperate times. Eleven cows thundered towards us out of the darkness, bawling and snorting in anticipation of an impromptu midnight feast. We conceded defeat and, in a huff, left the jostling herd of cows to eat up their ration. Clive said that we should sleep for a couple of hours and, at dawn, the rising sun would throw light onto the situation.
‘Ya dun’t think that she’s dead?’ I said.
‘No,’ he replied, ‘but likely t’cawf is.’
I began apologizing, admitting I’d made a grave mistake in leaving her be. I had always been a big believer in letting nature take its course, and not intervening unless really necessary, but this time I had made the wrong call and it hurt.
‘Nae, it cannae be helped,’ Clive said, turning to me.
Back we both went for another sweep of the field. When driving the quad bike it isn’t a good idea to take your eyes off the way ahead, especially when navigating your way across an uneven field in the pitch black. A narrow deep gutter cut through the field – and we went straight in it. It wasn’t big enough or deep enough to cause either us or the quad bike any lasting damage, but I was catapulted forwards and landed awkwardly on the ground at the other side. Clive was still astride the bike, though now sitting on its tank. Its rear wheels were stuck up in the air, the engine still running.
An exchange of expletives followed.
I brushed myself d
own and surveyed the damage. My left foot hurt, quite a lot actually. Clive was physically all right but not best suited.
‘Gis a hand to get t’bike out,’ he said gruffly.
I limped over.
‘Stand at t’side and press t’throttle,’ he said, warning me that I’d have to be ready to move out of the way quickly for, if the bike couldn’t grip sufficiently up the incline of the bank, there was a danger it might roll over. I pressed the throttle gently and the bike moved forwards, the back wheels dropping down and the front ones rising up at the other side. The front headlights that had temporarily illuminated the muddy water that ran through the gutter now shone upwards and onto an eroded shingle cliff, upon which a lone mountain ash grew. There, below the tree, stood Eartha!
‘Would you believe it?’ Clive muttered. ‘After all this flamin’ time. What the ’ell is she doing there?’
‘Hiding . . . in plain sight,’ I replied.
We agreed to abandon the bike, knowing Reuben would take great delight in rescuing it the next day. Our priority was to get Eartha back to the farm and into the barn, where we would have sufficient lighting and be able to keep everything clean, as it was highly likely that a caesarian would be required.
‘Are yer gaan to open t’gate or are yer gaan to fetch t’coo?’ Clive asked.
I had a feeling that my gentler manner might prove more successful at persuading Eartha to walk home. Clive seemed to be exuding some pretty cross vibes.
‘You do t’gate,’ I replied, already limping off in a wide arc so as to get around the back of Eartha in case she had any notions of heading for the hills.
