Sunday, June 21, 2009

Giving birth after dinner!


I don’t usually tell as story until way past its happening, but tonight is different. It was an interesting evening and I witnessed the miracle of birth after dinner, but before dessert!

We had dinner tonight at the home of Carl Loewith and Sandy Katz and some of their friends. Carl owns a good sized dairy farm here in Ancaster, and after dinner, we all went for a walk around the farm, as one might do after a nice dinner.

I was quite hot, as we were eating outside in the sun, and even with an umbrella it was a bit hot! After dinner we decided to take the walk and as we passed by the barns, one of the cows was starting to give birth. The calf’s head and front legs were sticking out of the cow!

OK, a bunch of city people do not know what to do except stare and point and say stuff like, “that cow’s having a baby!”

Carl, long time Jewish farmer (not your average profession for Jewish boys) has several hundred head of dairy cattle, and has about a calf a day. This is the norm for him but for us it was the wonder of life!

Carl went and got a glove (very long!), some lubricant (not KY) and a sort of block and tackle kind of thing for removing calves from their mothers. Using all that stuff, he climbed in the pen and helped the cow give birth. A farm hand came by and helped get the calf to the ground (the baby weighs about 100 pounds).

We went back and had dessert.

No, we did not have any meat for dinner, we had salmon.

The calf will not be named Arthur, which would have probably have been a good idea.

But I have never experienced such a thing between courses!

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