Rehoboth Farm

The day came when NathanÂ’s truck pulled up in our driveway pulling a livestock trailer. Everyone in the house came outside to see our new addition. Inside the trailer was #706, plus a small bull calf. Nathan said the bull calf was three days old and he thought the children would enjoy raising one from a bottle. We thought that was a really nice gesture. Nathan was out of his work clothes and looked more like a neatly dressed cattle-man than a dairy farmer. You could tell that this 100 mile trip was a big deal for him too. He even brought a lady friend with him (Nathan was a single parent).

He unloaded our cow and I noticed she had a halter on her. "IÂ’ve been halter breaking her for ya", he said. "What does that mean?" I asked. He explained that commercial JerseyÂ’s were a little stubborn, and they donÂ’t really trust people. During the weeks after we had last seen him he had been paying special attention to her when she came in for milking, even putting a halter on her and leading her around so that she could get used to it. I told him how we appreciated that, but at the time I didnÂ’t realize how much it really meant. He tied her halter to a twenty-foot lead and then tied the end to the fence. "Let her graze one area each day" he said, "then untie the rope from the fence and quickly move to another area and tie it up again, before she realizes that sheÂ’s free". "Hmm" I thought, "He makes it sound like she has a will of her own".

JerseyÂ’s are small, good mothers, and have the highest butterfat ratio of any dairy cow, thatÂ’s their good points. The bad thing is that unless you raise them from a bottle, itÂ’s very much like owning a mule with an udder. I naively thought that a cow would pretty much do anything for a few grains of oats and corn, especially if she had a lead on her. As Nathan was leaving, he stressed the fact that I shouldnÂ’t let her graze on her own for at least six weeks. I thought that was a little extreme, but agreed. He also told me to work with her as much as possible, leading her around, "But keep her tied to the fence". I said o.k.

We got her grain and her shelter and everything prepared and now we were just waiting on the day for her to calve and freshen. One day I decided to go into her pasture and walk her around a bit so that she could get used to me. As I got close to her she would wait and then jump away a few feet. I remembered that Dirk Van Loon talked about ‘flight distance’, which is basically just a cow’s comfort zone. I was a little put out that my very own milk cow thought I was violating her personal space. When she got to the end of the rope I took it in one hand and petted her. Kim was standing by watching. I tried to lead her around but she would have none of it. Every time I pulled the rope, she would back away from me and dip her head as if to try and get loose of the halter.

I told Kim I should take the rope loose from the fence so that she couldnÂ’t use the tension of it to try and break free of the halter. Kim said "I donÂ’t think thatÂ’s a good idea, Nathan said to keep her tied up". "But he also said I needed to walk her, which sheÂ’s not letting me do" I said. "IÂ’ll just take it loose for a while and stay close to the fence in case she starts to walk away. Kim repeated that she didnÂ’t think it was a good idea, but I began to untie the rope anyway. After I had it loose I walked over to the cow and began to pet her, "See, thatÂ’s not so bad" I said. Kim said that if she got loose we might not be able to corral her again, so I wrapped the rope several times around one hand and gripped it tightly. Bad idea.

I took the rope and began to walk her slowly. Both Kim and I were smiling at the progress being made. After about a minute of this, I went to stop her; she didnÂ’t want to stop. I pulled the rope tight and said "woah!" This was her cue. She bolted like a calf in a roping contest across the pasture, with me hanging on by the hand that was now wrapped tightly in the rope. I was being dragged along the ground at what felt like about 40mph, hitting every bump and ant mound along the way. Kim was yelling "Let go of the rope! Let go of the rope!" I was thinking what a great idea that would be if it were only possible. About half way across the pasture I hit an old stump in the ground that caused me to go limp, just long enough for the rope to slip off my hand and I came to a stop, face down in the cool grass.

I could hear Kim scrambling with the gate latch to come see if I was okay. I stood up; it hurt everywhere. As she walked over to me she was smiling and looking to see if I was actually hurt. She looked me over and then said, "I didnÂ’t think that was a good idea". Mike was standing on the fence yelling, "That was neat Daddy, do that again!"

We looked over at #706, who was grazing and looking at us. The long lead trailed along the ground from her halter. She was eyeing us with a look that said, "Now maybe youÂ’ll treat me with a little more respect". She was right.

After a little coaxing and a lot of corn I got her tied to the fence again. We decided she needed a name so we set the children to thinking of a fitting one. Their favorite story at the time was Anne of Green Gables, and they remembered that Anne had a Jersey cow but no-one could think of her name. Our daughter Olivia remembered that Anne wanted to call herself Cordelia, and we all thought that was great cow name. We nick-named her Dilly, which to me sounded like a very jovial name for one cow so bent on having her own way.

I got used to going out twice a day with a bucket of grain and walking over to where Dilly was and holding it while she ate. Of course this was after much dancing around while she got over her problem with me being too close for comfort. I would pet her while she ate and talk to her gently. She really was a pretty cow. She had a coat that went from medium brown to almost black in places, especially on her face. At the top of her head between her ears there was a patch of reddish-orange fur that stuck up in a hair-do of sorts, complete with curls. Standing there next to this relatively large animal and considering that she is able to feed herself and at the same time provide milk for a calf, and for our family, gave you a real sense of the plan that God has for this earth and for his people; if we would just do his will and take dominion over it. After a couple of weeks of this it seemed that we were really making progress. I was now able to untie her rope and lead her to another spot on the fence where there was fresh grass. She seemed to have settled into her new home and was enjoying it as much as we were.

One day I walked out to where Dilly was; or was the last time I left her. The rope was there, tied to the fence, and as I followed the rope along the ground, there at the end of if was the halter, laying on the ground. I looked over and there was Dilly, at the other end of the pasture, grazing and staring at me with a very prideful look on her face. I had a mixture of anxiety and anger as I watched her looking at me, almost daring me to try and come catch her. I figured out that this was going to be a battle of wills from now on, until she realized how good she had it here. Then I got an idea.

I shook the grain in the bucket in my hand. She immediatley raised her head and her ears popped up like little radar recievers. She took a few steps towards me. I went through the gate and laid the bucket on the ground. "Dillllly" I called to her. She came prancing over and stopped short by about ten feet. I backed up and she came over and started eating from the bucket. The problem was that to get the halter on her, it had to go around her mouth and up over her head, something that seemed completely impossible to do while she was eating. I finally laid the ring of the halter around the lid of the bucket, when she stuck her head in the bucket, she was already half-way in the halter and I reached down and quickly pulled it the rest of the way over her head.

She quickly lifted her head up and looked at me, all the while chewing a mouthful of grain. She then backed up slowly until the rope was taught, where she then drooped her head and ‘pop’ the halter came off. She then walked back to the bucket and continued to eat. It was if she was saying, ‘Oh, you want to see how easy it is to get out of it?, just watch. I reached over and petted her; she didn’t flinch. I reached under and felt her udder, mimicking what it would take to milk her; again she just kept eating. I figured this was a fair trade, I don’t make her wear the halter and she’ll let me milk her (provided there is grain involved). I let it go at that and put the halter in the barn for good.