Nonfiction | April 16, 2024

After Birth 

This winter in southwestern Colorado we had snow and cold for months. Three-degree mornings in February, March, even into spring. We don’t like the cows calving in icy air onto frozen ground, the calf wet while the cow’s rough tongue licks it clean, which removes the slick of amniotic sac but leaves the calf still damp as it staggers up into the wind to get its first drink. The extremities sometimes get frostbitten, but you can’t tell if a calf’s ears have frozen until suddenly the tips or tops have disappeared. 

Today it’s still February and we’re feeding in a blizzard, number 345 the first cow to the trailer with the three-quarter ton hay bales on it. She’s one of the biggest Angus cows, tall and wide and gentle, and the hairs of her black coat curl with moisture in the sideways-blowing snow. Ken feeds off the back of the trailer while I drive in a big circle, the pickup in granny gear and four-wheel-drive low, the slowest a manual transmission can go, the window open so I can hear if Ken yells for me to stop. Hay duff blows in and sticks to snowflakes melting on my cheek. I swab at the exposed skin with a gloved hand and peer through the white blur to avoid hitting cattle or running over greasewood and puncturing a tire.