The day began as many others have this spring. A cool wind made me shiver as I stepped out the back door under a dreary sky. If thick clouds hadn’t obscured the sun, shimmery rays of light would have streaked the eastern horizon. The pipe gate I climbed over to survey the calving yard was cold and wet. A few cows glanced nonchalantly in my direction, not wanting to move from the bed of straw where they were resting. They are accustomed to our frequent passage among the herd.
    In the middle of this pastoral group a gooey little black calf flapped its wet ears. Just moments old, the newborn steamed in the cold morning gloom, the mother busily beginning to lick her baby clean and dry. I left this bucolic scene undisturbed for now, taking note of the parental tag number and evaluating the udder status as non-problematic. Much later in the day this idyllic setting would become archaic. Another cow would choose to deliver her calf in that same straw pile, causing maternal confusion and bovine hysteria.
    I felt safe inside the skid-loader cage herding one of the mothers into the corral with her calf that had not yet had his first life-sustaining drink. Her head-bobbing, snorting, pawing antics were indicators that adrenaline levels might be elevated. Once inside the shed, closer to an enclosure where we assumed we could gain some control, she challenged my authority. Fearlessly pushing her way between my machine and the tall fence, she toppled me backward like a hard-shell beetle with its legs pawing at the air. With the help of the hydraulic lift arms and persistent maneuvering of the bucket, somehow, I’m not sure how, most of the next few moments were kind of blurry, the skid-loader began to move. Now MY adrenaline was pumping, prompting more aggressive herding techniques to block the cow from escaping. Still she surged toward me, at one point getting her head wedged between the half-raised bucket and the operator’s seat.
    I didn’t feel real safe anymore. I didn’t feel brave. I found out that it is possible to escape through the back window of the little machine. I don’t know if it was really necessary to do so; it was the topic of discussion when we were safely on the other side of a tall sturdy fence catching our breath. Her fuse had been lit. When we opened the big sliding door on the shed, she shot out of there like ammunition from a gun barrel. A few seconds too late she realized that we’d parked the stock trailer in front of that door. It wasn’t the perfect end to a perfect day for any of us. We have not mastered turning chaos into calm; we’re still working on it.