Yesterday afternoon, I asked Eucefe to bring in the cows. Every evening we separate the two calves from their mamas, so the cows get ushered up one side of the field, and then through a couple paddocks. Juniper and Mickey are held in one, and the rest of the cows meander on through to the other side for their evening munchies.
From the kitchen window, I noticed the cows didn’t seem to be moving much, or at all, so I told my younger son to go out and help. But that didn’t seem to be doing much either. And then I heard my son yelling.
“There’s another calf! We have three now!”
“We have two,” I shouted back. “What are you talking about!”
“Nope! There are definitely three! It’s still wet!”
My son was holding something. I squinted. It was a calf. It did not have white spots and it wasn’t black.
HOLY SHIT THERE WAS ANOTHER CALF.
I sprinted down to the field and, sure enough, a new calf was wobble-prancing about, its brown swirls still stiff from amniotic fluid.
photo credit: my younger son
But who was the mother? We didn’t have any other pregnant cows. Did the calf belong to a neighbor? Did Butterscotch or Gracie deliver a twin — several weeks after the first? Was that even a thing?
I was utterly bamboozled. Staggered. Flummoxed. Gobsmacked. I just stood there and stared.
My son pointed out that Imogene had mucus and bloody discharge. What the heck? She was only 15 months old. Hadn’t she been in a separate pasture when the bull paid his visit? And she hadn’t been pregnant. We would’ve noticed if she’d been pregnant.
photo credit: my younger son
The boys got the calves and Imogene separated from the cows. Imogene was mildly bagged up (but not nearly as much as the other mamas), and she didn’t seem particularly interested in the calf. She just stood there, chewing hay like it was a wad of Bubbalicious. I half expected her to blow a bubble.
When I told my husband, he was surprised, but also not really. He’d noticed all the signs . . . without noticing. He’d chalked her added weight up to a good appetite. The enlarged udder probably meant she was ready to breed. He’d even noticed that her vulva had been super swollen that morning but dismissed it without even thinking.
Isn’t it crazy? If we don’t expect to see something, it simply isn’t there — until it sprouts legs and takes off walking.
photo credit: my older daughter
There’s a name for this phenomenon: inattentional blindness. There are tests you can take that demonstrate it, including this one:
Kinda makes me wonder what else I’m not seeing…
P.S. I named the new one Little Miss Oopsie. Imogene is turning out to be a fantastic teen mom.
This same time, years previous: truly wild, spring hits, apricot couronne, the pigpen, the quotidian (3.24.14), over the moon, roasted vegetables, snappy happy.
