We interrupted the birthday festivities yesterday to go to Bejosh Farm yesterday to see Maria, the newborn calf Carol and Ed Gulley named in honor of Maria. The two seemed to love each other pretty quickly. Ed Gulley suggested we bring Maria the calf to Bedlam Farm for the Spring and Summer, and then she will go back to their farm after the summer to begin her milking duties there.
He said we can keep her if we wish, but that is not a good idea, and all of us know it.
The Gulleys are among the most loving and generous people I know.
Maria the calf will definitely not be staying here permamently, but she’ll be here for the Open Houses in June and October, and we’ll have her all summer. That will be great. I have to say I love cows, they are the most gentle, spiritual and companionable of creatures.
This plan makes a lot of sense. Watching Maria with Maria in the Gulley barn, I could see how much Maria will love having a baby cow, she gets right down with them and begins talking, and they love and trust her. Another chapter in our journey, sort of…
But I am wiser, hopefully.
We flirted with the idea of trying to bring her here for good, but we both knew that would be a serious error in judgement. There is a fine line between a farm and a petting zoo in my mind, and I remember the experience of Elvis, the 3,000 lb swiss steer I took to the first Bedlam Farm. I loved him dearly, and learned much from him, but it was a disaster for me.
It is not a loving thing to pile all kinds of animals in a farm, we have enough to handle and get to know and love.
To feed Elvis, I had to get round bales of hay, then a small tractor to move the round bales, then two more cows to keep him company. Then more round bales and flies and manure and vet bills. I did learn to communicate with Elvis and train him, but the three cows nearly broke me and overwhelmed the farm. He was a loving creature, a nuzzler, and he loved to snuggle with me, eat apples and chew on my hats, which he inhaled.
He also was a world champion drooler.
Elvis and Harold and Luna were powerful symptoms and reminders of madness, not animal love, and as always the animals pay. Elvis’s legs began to go, and if a big steer like that falls over, they have to be shot or euthanized where they lay. He went to feed some homeless teenagers in an upstate shelter, he had a very good time while he was here. I often read stories to him up in the pasture, he sometimes ate the books.
But some animals are not pets and ought not to be confused with pets. Many people hated me, of course, for sending me to slaughter, but I respected myself, it was the right decision, which is all that matters to me. Elvis lived on, I was on a treadmill in cardiac rehab last year and the very nice woman running next to me turned to me suddenly and said, “you know that steer you had on your farm? It came from my farm.” That was Carol Gulley, and the beginning of our friendship with the Gulleys. Elvis came from Bejosh Farm.
A newborn female calf is something of a pet, small, playful and affectionate – all of the Gulley’s cows are affectionate – and when we see how much the Gulleys love their cows and how much the cows love them, we are inspired to learn about yet another species together and spent a few months with Maria (the calf) here on the farm. Maria will love it, she lit up at the idea, and I will love getting to watch them and take photos of it. We’ll halter train her and work on communicating with her, as we have with so many other animals.
Good for the blog, too, when I put up a photo of the Maria the calf, it went viral yesterday. Maria and I both discussed the realities: we will attach to Maria but in the Fall, she won’t be going to slaughter or a strange place but to a great home, her birthplace, with the other cows on the Gulley Farm. Should be a good year for her and an interesting one for us.
She’ll be here in a couple of months.