The lessons of calves and saints
On Wednesday night, Tee, my 6-year-old, had catechism class and mass, and I was sitting at the back of the church, watching the pews filled with young kids. My heart was heavy knowing I had sad news to share with the little blonde boy who loves cows more than anyone I know.
The mass was a teaching mass of sorts and the young kids in the pews were all flanked with their religious education teachers and the older kids gripped notes so they could respond correctly. It’s no simple task sometimes.
They were wiggly, as kids will be and I saw Tee lean over and tell another boy to be very quiet while Father spoke, because “Jesus lives in here.” Tee was in a row of little boys, all the same age, and the light was coming through the stained glass and casting a glow on him. I looked at the window, each depicting a different saint. The one shining down right upon Tee was Saint Isadore the farmer.
St. Isadore is the patron saint of farmers and rural communities. He married a rural woman, who was also canonized a saint, Maria de la Cabeza. Isadore worked the land, fed his neighbors, and cared for his animals with great concern.
When Tee’s great-grandmother Mary Arnold passed, the pastor relayed the story of her cooking and feeding a crowd regularly. When Grandpa Daryl would bring home more than a few guests at dinnertime, Mary was never flapped. He would tell her, “add some water to the soup,” and there would be plenty. It wasn’t unlike Isadore who did the same and Maria responded that the soup pot was empty. He told her to look again, and it was full and bubbling.
Isadore is the saint who reminds me of the dignity of hard work and the alignment of spiritual life and work well done. When I was taking classes to earn my teaching certificate as a young, single mom, the building where the classes took place had a sign on a wall that said, “I believe in the dignity of hard work.” I do. I’ve kept a St. Isadore medal on my desk for years.
After mass, Tee and I returned home to feed calves, and I had to deliver the sad news.
Two years ago, he and I raised a little Hereford heifer on a bottle. When she was ready, she made daily trips to the wash rack where he rinsed her in cool water and then tied her in a cooled barn with his older sister’s show steers that were being readied for county fair. She was rinsed and blown and brushed every day, all summer long. She adjusted quickly to the lifestyle.
He named her Chili Pepper and told our county agent, Marlin Eisenach, at the bucket calf show during the fair that it was so because “she’s spicy.” He went on to sing “Tear in my Beer” to him which I believe is still one of Marlin’s favorite stories to recall.
Chili Pepper came home after the fair and spent the fall growing alongside other calves her age. Most of those calves went to the sale barn or to other 4-H kids for show steers, but Chili Pepper stayed. Tee chose blue as the color of his ear tags and he tagged her himself, helped dad brand her, and she stayed.
Tee was there when dad bred her to a Hereford bull. He was, much to his chagrin, at school the day the veterinarian came out and said she was, indeed, bred. He attends a small school, and his teacher let him know the good news after I texted her. The whole class whooped and cheered. She spent the summer on grass, and we brought her home to calve. Tee checked her and watched for signs of labor for weeks.
The gestation in cattle is 283 days, which is a lifetime for a first grader. She happened to calve on a day without school and Tee was home to help. She is a small heifer and, because it was her first time calving, she needed a bit of help. We brought her to the barn, and he put red plastic sleeves on, ready to pull a calf. She didn’t need too much help, and Tee and his older sister were able to pull the calf themselves. He was Hereford bull calf and the joy on his face as he watched his cow lick her calf was nothing short of a moment I count in my most bountiful blessings.
Tee named him Jalapeno. His dad congratulated him and welcomed him to the cattle business. He has never been so proud of anything in his life and he and I tagged the calf with a new blue tag. The pair spent the night in the barn and Tee bounded out of bed the next morning to help me turn Chili and Jalapeno out to a pasture to graze. He stood in the alley and watched as his cow softly called to the little calf, and he tip toed through a few puddles and followed her into the pasture. My eyes were a bit blurry all day.
He continued his multiple daily checks on the pair and things were going well. Until they weren’t. I don’t know why the calf died, but he did.
We sat in the chore pickup and looked out at the pair pasture where Chili stood alone, and I told him about Jalapeno. His first response was tears. My mother-in-law had cut Jalapeno’s blue ear tag off and saved it before he was buried and had it to give to Tee. I printed some of the copious number of photos I had taken over the previous days and he held those and the ear tag in his chubby little hands.
He told me God must have needed a good Hereford bull calf and wiped his tears. In the spirit of every ag producer I’ve ever known, he told me there’s always next year.
