Stories of life on our farm in Northwest Georgia where every day is an adventure in this beautiful spot that God has entrusted to our stewardship.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Sara's Surprise!

We had a French friend, Nicolas, over for a visit tonight and took him out to the barn when we went out for the evening feed.  Herb had Hero on the leash as we walked out, when I was surprised to see something black moving near Sara.

"What's that black thing near Sara?" I asked, and just as soon as I'd said it, I answered my own question:  "She's had her calf!"

Sure enough, a little bull (which fact the sunlight is highlighting in this picture!)

He was just standing up when we got out there, still wet, and Sara was still trying to lick him while he was trying to stand up and explore.
She didn't let him get more than a couple feet away in any direction before she followed him, moving close and licking him.  She wanted to get him dry because night was coming on.
He tried exploring a bit, then his front legs gave out!  It was too much effort to get up, so he just stayed like this for a couple of minutes!
Finally he figured out how to get the back legs down so he could take a little rest with Mama standing guard over him.  Zephyr was very curious, standing in the round pen trying to see the calf, but Sara would have none of it!
She wouldn't even leave him to come eat her dinner across the round pen, so I took it over to her.  To my surprise, she wasn't bothered by my nearness so I stayed on to take some more pictures.
We named him T-Bone (instead of something like Nicolas!) because he is going to be our first grass-fed steer for beef.  However, I think it's hopeless to try not to get atttached by naming him T-Bone--he's just too darn cute!
 Those pesky, wobbly front legs!
Back on his feet and looking quite the handsome little bull!  We're quite proud of our first Dexter!

7 comments:

  1. Cuteness incarnate! I don't think I can partake in eating T-Bone...just don't tell me it's him, come time to break out the grill -;)

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  2. Welcome T-Bone. Can't wait to (m)eat you!

    Am I the only one hearing a voice in my head saying over and over "can we keep him? can we keep him? can we keep him? can we keep him? can we? can we? can we?..."

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  3. @Jenny, we won't tell you.
    @Jean-Marc, you're so funny! "(M)eat you!" Actually, I'm not asking if we can keep him, but it did occur to me that we had said if it was a heifer we'd keep her to breed because her daddy is such a great bull. So what's the difference with a little bull? Maybe his breeding is good enough to use him as a herd sire. At any rate, I don't want us to rush into castrating him.

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  4. "At any rate, I don't want us to rush into castrating him."

    Let me thank you for that in the name of all the males of the earth.

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  5. Hey! We miss your blog updates. Hope you guys are well and busy!

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  6. Wow, she is SO cute!!! I can't wait to get Charis out there to see!!!

    monique

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  7. just wanting to see if i can post as monique

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