The first two and a half weeks of April were sort of a blur. Thirty calves in three weeks, 24 of those coming in two weeks. Cold snaps, slow grass growth, a couple of calving difficulties, and metabolic disorders were some of the main challenges that kept us addressing urgencies. Two cows came down with milk fever (hypocalcemia) a few days apart. Despite treating the first one orally several times she didn't make it. The day Pearl calved, she seemed to have been in labor all day and I was concerned when she hadn't delivered by evening. After supper, though, we checked her and found a little heifer not even dried off but already standing up nursing aggressively! When Pearl went down the next day with milk fever, we gave her some oral calcium, but called the vet so he could give her an IV calcium treatment too (it was evening before he could get away from the clinic). I didn't want to chance losing another cow if I could help it! I put her calf, Petunia in the barn to feed her on the bottle since nursing would exacerbate Pearl's condition. The next morning she seemed to be past the milk fever crisis, but still couldn't get up and continued to flop over on her side, unable to get back upright. We propped her up with a bale of hay and put a polywire around her so that the other cows wouldn't eat her backrest! I was encouraged that she would drink water and eat some hay. After lunch I got away from the shop to check on her again and was overjoyed to see her standing up!!
When a cow has milk fever, milking her can pull too much calcium from her body. I wanted to let Petunia nurse but knew just a little bit was all that was safe for Pearl. So that next morning we turned Pearl into the barn with her calf, but she didn't seem to be interested in her baby. I got her to stand still so the calf could nurse a bit, then separated them again. I felt like Pearl was a little borderline so we gave her another oral treatment, and she seemed to improve throughout the day, so she nursed the calf again that evening. The next morning I let the calf have her fill. Her tummy was full!! After they had been together a while I went into the barn to check and see how Pearl seemed to be doing before turning them out to the pasture again. By now she had regained the bond with her calf, and as I stood in front of her, she sort of shook her head at me, as if to indicate she didn't want me messing with her or her calf. At that point I was pretty sure she was mostly better!
As I thought about it, Pearl taught me something. She was sick, and we helped her. We had to give her medicine--which apparently didn't taste all that good--to aid in her recovery. We had to take her baby away for a time...letting the calf nurse literally could have killed her. I had to put a boundary around her to keep the troublemakers out, but once she was able to stand, it may have looked to her more like a prison. After all these things, when the crisis had passed, she seemed to see me more as foe than friend. And I thought, isn't this how we are with God sometimes? Sometimes all is not right in our world, and we need Him to fix it because we don't have the strength or ability to make it happen ourselves. Maybe He knows that in order for our healing, He may have to give us something that doesn't taste very good at the time but its purpose is to address what's wrong inside us. Maybe He's giving us boundaries, not to imprison us but to protect us from that which will ultimately keep us flat on our backs. And there may be times when He removes even good things from our grasp because He has our ultimate good in mind. As Pearl shook her head at me, it reminded me of the times we may have shaken our fists at God. "How could you allow this, God??" "How could you have taken this from me, God??" Is it not a lack of understanding on our part for what He seeks to do in us? This is not to say that He causes all the trials and difficulties and hurt, because we have an enemy of our souls, too. But even those He will redeem! He is in the business of turning us from death to life. It's Good News! So remember Pearl, and instead of shaking your head at your Shepherd, consider thanking Him for how He's saving your life.
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