A Watched Pot Never Boils................

Yesterday my Farmer was gone for the day so I was left in charge.  Normally its no big deal, but every once in a while, I am tested.  This was one of those days.  On my ride out through the cows, I came upon a first year heifer that was calving.  I could tell she was calving from sign number 5. (read ready...set...calve )  (the feet were handing out).  So far this year only 2 of our heifers have calved, one we had to pull the calf and the other calved on her own, so I figured I had a 50/50 chance she could do it on her own.  (gotta have that positive thinking)  After checking to make sure the feet were pointing in the right direction and not backwards, I left her to do her thing.  I parked a ways away from her, got my trusty little binoculars out, and just sat and watch and prayed she would have it on her own.  After watching her for what seemed like a very long time (about 30 minutes), I decided to call my Farmer to see how long before he would be home.  He was over 2 hours away.  No big deal, I can handle this.  After another long time (probably 15 minutes), and she still was not progressing, I was starting to panic.  I headed to the corral and got things ready to bring her in.  Trying to decide who to call for help and if I could bring her in to the corral by myself, I was really starting to hit panic mode.  I headed back out to the cow, this time saying all the prayers I could come up with all the way out through the field.  I could see from a distance that she was still laying down. (The panic meter was going up a little more.) Then as I got closer, she stood up and, yay,  there was a new calf laying on the ground. YES!!  What a relief.  See, I knew there was nothing to panic about. (ya, right)  I guess my first mistake was just sitting there watching.  You know the saying, a watched pot never boils. Well, the saying goes for cattle too.  Here are some pictures......

Just born

a couple hours hours old