Silly Sally ……………… Paula inspired

A number of years ago we’d had a sad Spring calving season. We’d lost three cows calving leaving of course the wonderful calves saved an personally nurtured by all of us having anything to do with the farm. There was an unnamed red bull calf, as his existence had an all beef ending, he wasn’t named much more than Bully, as his future was still in doubt. Next there was a roan colored heifer whom Frieda had called her Molly. Lastly there’s this all white heifer who’d started out simply called Sally. Frieda like that name as Frieda thought this calf looked like a Sally.
Starting out hand feeding the all three calve on bottles I soon grew tired of that. My trying to use the iron mama‘s wasn’t working out either. Personally I wasn’t only having to keep the critters separated to bottle feed each one individually, I just plainly disliked making bottles and the following bottle and nipple clean ups. So it was I tried introducing the lot to the bucket. This done slipping my fingers into their mouths, one at a time, then taking to pushing their muzzles down into the milk twice each day until they got the drinking idea for them selves Oh, there was some resistance this process carried out about three days or about six times for the first two calves. Sally had to be different. It must have taken me a week dipping her muzzle into the milk bucket, before she caught on, and even then I had to hold her bucket for days or she’d dump it every time. Thus what had started out a Sally became Silly Sally.
As the Summer when on Bully had been bought and processed for somebody’s freezer. Molly grew and grew until she was auctioned in a state wide production sale, as a bred heifer. Sally stayed with us for years. When ever I needed the heard, all I had to do was holler “Sally.” She’d pick up her head and look at me. I’d hold up an ear of corn (or an orange glove, she was on her way coming to me, the whole herd following her. I know. A sneaky way bring the lot into the holding pens for working them thru the chutes
I had come to pass Sally had possibly injured her udder and it had become infected requiring her to be kept in sick bay. My having to treat her with penicillin shots and applied scarlet oil twice a day the first week and once a day after that until she healed, we had come to a most memorable understanding.
My having to go out into the holding pen (the sick bay) I had to driver Sally into the chute, the squeeze chute, and the head gate. After four days of so this routine she was coming inn on her own for the inevitable treatments. My delighted with her cooperation the same time my headed her way, I started rewarding her. A couple three pounds of corn each treatment guaranteed me her cooperation over the next three months.
When we were all done she her treatments finished with her udder healed, she still remained a good three quarter cow faithfully contributing to the herd four fourteen years, plus giving me an occasional back massage if I should be standing among the whole of the herd when out on pasture. I stll miss her. ………Fernan