NURSERY

Dorothy-Jean (Dody) Christian Chapman

by

After aerobics class I am particularly light on my feet. I expect the next two hours until bedtime to be a time of declining frenetic activity in preparation for school the next day. Upon attempting to open the kitchen door to begin this wind-down tonight, I was met with resistance. The door was jammed and seemed to produce bawling with each push. Looking through the crack I managed to create between the door sill and the opening edge of the door I could see cloven hooves of the bovine variety. Big, meconium-slathered, baby hooves. I could see now that they belonged to our latest arrival: an extraordinarily large black calf. As I scanned its body with my one eye orbit resting on the door frame, I could see he was not only huge but he was shivering. Ray must have brought him inside to give him colostrum (first milk) and warm him up before returning him to mama. Im used to this kind of neonatal nursery in the kitchen. It could be pigs, poultry, sheep, goats or fowl. All are part of our farming business (and oft times menagerie!). However, as I leaned on the door and pushed the calf back enough for me to enter the kitchen, I was met with two bawls in synchrony. Twins! The second behemoth only slightly smaller than the first. Their combined weights must have been nearly 150 pounds. I contemplated the scene before choosing my route across the kitchen over two large quivering bodies and four pairs of legs. To walk the obstacle course, or not. Ray, my husband, had abandoned the kitchen to the nether regions of the cabin to regroup from his own labor assisting the labor. I called his name believing him to be downstairs. Instead, his voice boomed down through the beams of the kitchen ceiling from the after-thought bathroom upstairs. All this calling back and forth through our diminutive domicile seemed to energize the twin calf-cicles. They struggled valiantly to right themselves on eight unsteady legs, tipping over the ash bucket and the wood stove tools. Wood dust billowed throughout the kitchen as the two calves bumped into our table, stomped on Rays muddy boots, and then bawled in tandem as they headed for me at the kitchen door, leaving muddy tracks in profusion. One calf locked onto my gym bag and with a great slurping sound proceeded to suck on the bag strap as if it was a milk bottle. The other calf grabbed my hand with its prehensile tongue and nursed all four of my fingers. Our three bodies filled most of the free space in the kitchen. To walk anywhere would have caused further destruction. So I called to Ray for help. By this time, he had arrived at the bottom of the stairs and could see my predicament. He did not rescue me right away. He sat down, slid into his manurey boots, threw on his outing jacket, and walked to the kitchen sink where he had been warming up rich, golden colostrum in two calf bottles. I occupied the calves while Ray brought the bottles to our unofficial nursing station. Ray attempted to interest the calf on the gym bag with the first bottle. No. This calf had something tangible, although not productive, and refused to take the bottle. Calf number two, on my fingers, took the other bottle as an extension of my hand and downed most of the contents. Back to the first calf: my husband tried to pull the gym bag strap out of the calfs mouth and substitute with the bottle, but the calf bawled and began to back up in the small kitchen. Down went two chairs, another trash can and a laundry basket with clean linens. Ray manhandled the calf, applied pressure to its nostrils and pre-palate, thus causing the mouth to fly open.

That was just the invitation for Ray to pop the nipple bottle into the calfs mouth. Finally this twin decided to settle into rhythmic suckling to satisfy its primal urge for sustenance. Ray and I perused our destroyed kitchen as we backed out the door with the now warmed-up youngsters on bottle tow. We towed the little guys back to mamas delivery lot where mama took over the nursing job. Ray and I offered each other knowing smiles; all in a days work.