My, my...my Antoinette!

This is about Velvet, a week old red calf who has been cast off by her rude mother. And, it is about my wife Annette, a 64 year old retired grammar school teacher and ex-Junior Leaguer whose most recent relationship with cows is buying milk at Publix.

Annette runs our horse farm, all 18 of them, plus our four dogs, cat and dwarf lopped eared rabbit. Instead of teaching, she is now birthing and raising foals, working her horses in the round pen, riding in the forest behind the farm, mowing pastures, and redistributing horse manure. Farming, too, is new to her. Before she retired, she had never been around horses.

I travel a lot in my work, and this week when we spoke on the phone the first night she started talking about Velvet and how she is feeding Velvet from a bottle because her mother won't let Velvet nurse. Velvet? Who is Velvet, I asked?

Annette explained. Velvet is a new born calf that belongs to our neighbor, Mr Walter, an almost 80 year old man who lives down at the end of the road. Mr. Walter and Annette have become good friends over the last several months. He and his nephew David have helped her populate our pastures with grass. She has cooked meat loaf and key lime pies for David, and special dishes for Mr. Walter that fit his diet. So, it was only natural when Mr. Walter discovered a mother cow had pushed away the new born calf that he called Annette to help. Only, Mr. Walter calls her, "Antoinette."

It is just another chapter of a very long book of things that continue to amaze me about Annette, aka Antoinette. Despite not having been around horses until about four years ago, she is a seasoned horse person now. About a month ago one of our mares dropped a little filly on the ground just before sun up. It was the third foal born on our farm since we bought it less than two years ago. And, this was the first time I was home to witness the incredible event. Annette was all over it as I watched in awe. The black mare was on the ground and the bag bearing the baby was almost completely out when I got there. As if she had been doing it all of her life, Annette went into the paddock, stepped up to the rear of the mare and reached down to where the new born's tiny head was covered. She grabbed the birth bag and tore it open to expose the head, then she cleared the foal's mouth and nose of any obstructions. Wow! I didn't know she could do that.

Yesterday afternoon I got home from my most recent business trip. Later in the day, Annette had to go down to Mr. Walter's to handle Velvet's third feeding of the day, so I went with her.
Mr Walter was waiting, standing there by the small pen with his walking stick, so happy to see his Antoinette, and surprised to see me. Inside the pen, the tiny red calf was on the ground, all snuggled up under some hay.

Without hesitation, Annette took hold of this large plastic bottle full of a milk formula, added some sweet water to it, and then went inside the pen. She reached down to the calf, picked it up , held it there and started working the nipple on the bottle of milk into the calf's mouth. Velvet couldn't quite get it. Her tongue flopped back and forth as Annette probed with the bottle's nipple, trying to get it in place underneath the tongue. "You almost got it, Antoinette," Mr. Walter said.

She got it, and suddenly the only sound you could hear was the calf sucking on that nipple as Annette held up Velvet's head in just the right position. Wow! I didn't know she could do that.

The feeding was not easy from that point on. Velvet's clumsy tongue kept getting in the way. Annette would fix her grip on the calf, push open her mouth with a free hand and keep probing until she and the calf were in sync again. And there was that sucking sound again.

"My, my," said Mr. Walter. "Velvet sure is doing better. She was so skinny and couldn't even stand up. But, Antoinette has just fed her and fed her. Ain't she beautiful! My, my."

Yes, Mr. Walter. She sure is beautiful. And Velvet is pretty cute, too.