A night out.....

When Karl finishes the middle of the night milking shift, he goes through the heifer barn to check on the animals.  That's when he found a young heifer wedged up in the bars of her stall with her back legs split out behind her.  She couln't get up and if Karl wouln't have found her she would have died like that.  So he puts a halter on and tries to turn her around but she is way too heavy.  She weighs about 500 pounds.  He tried pulling on her tail to turn her but his hand slipped off and he fell backward on his back.  That's when he tried to tie her to the 4-wheeler to pull her around and he finally got her out of her stall but she was still split out with her back legs.  So he decides to call his partner (that would be me) to help him.  Keep in mind that this is 1:30 A.M. and I am sound asleep in the farmhouse.  I jump out of bed and quickly get dressed and stumble part-way down the steps when I realize I should put my glasses on or I wouldn't  be much help.  So I fumble around on the bedstand until I find my glasses and go as quickly as I can to get my shoes at the back door.  As I run stiffly up the driveway trying to get my eyes to focus, Karl comes running down to get the loader tractor.  My job was to open the gates and get all the other animals chased away so they wouln't escape while he drives in with the tractor.  Then I take his place on the tractor to operate the loader.  The plan was to roll her onto the bucket so that we could take her out to a different building with soft bedding so we could get her to stand.  The problem was that I was still trying to wake up and focus my eyes and he wanted me to operate the hydrolic bucket on the tractor. Which way do I push the lever to go forward?  Oh dear, the bucket was going down, back, up, over, and Karl was trying to hold the heifer in the right postion while shouting instructions to me.  Finally, I got it going the right way and up went the heifer.  Whew!  So we got her over to the other barn and laid her gently down, untied her, postioned her legs under her, and pulled her head around and up she jumped!  Sometimes if they have injured their legs, they will just lay there and die.  Thank the Lord that she was able to get right up and walk! 

                                   

        It was just  another day  night "on the farm."