Spring babies.

Baby cows and baby goats..... cute, cute, cute, especially when you can get up to them real close.

A good while back, a bull from the pasture next door to JS got onto her property, and before the bull's owner could get that animal back on his own side of the fence, "the deed" had been done. The result was a baby calf, born just this past weekend, to one of the cows in JS's yard.  This adorable brown bundle of cow-hide was christened 'Chocolate Chip' by J, and birth announcements went out via eMail to her closest friends.  Mama cow ('Mocha Moo') and baby are doing just fine.... the neighboring bull has long forgotten his liason with Mocha Moo, I'm sure.

My husband and I walked up to JS's property to see the new baby....... Chocolate Chip is just adorable, and on the day we met him, he let us pet his soft ears and scratch the top of his head. He has a tuft of brown hair on top of his head, in sort of an Alfalfa-type of style, similar to the hair-do of Mocha Moo. I have no idea what the bull looks like, but clearly, Chip's good looks come from his mama. The calf's skin was so soft... his ears were like velvet, and I can't even describe the expression in his eyes...... questioning and innocent and trusting.

We had a cold snap the weekend that calf was born... windy all night long, and colder than it should be at this time of the year.  There's no barn on that property for the cows, no place to get out of the wind unless the cows are smart enough to keep moving around the pastures looking for a wind-free zone.  I could never have livestock on our own property.... I'd be out there in the rain and the wind and the cold, ready to wrap everyone up in blankets and lead them into the barn where I'd have a wood stove burning to keep them warm and cozy. Not practical, of course, but that's what I'd want to do.

So who has custody of the baby calf?  The owner of the bull or the owner of the cow?  JS says it's the owner of the cow, since the bull's attention span ends when he's 'finished' with the cow.... and it's the mama cow who will nurture the calf and keep it safe and warm and nourished.

The neighbor across the road from us has had four baby calves in the past couple of months..... all of his cows are big and brown, with just a few having some white markings on their faces. Those baby cows all look like JS's 'Chocolate Chip' even though the bulls who fathered them were different. I guess one brown cow is the same as the next brown cow.

The across-the-road neighbor also has at least six baby goats..... they're running around the pasture now like puppies, chasing one another and crying for their mamas if they're out of sight for three seconds.  The cries from the baby goats are just terribly sad, and they sound like human babies, especially when their cries are carried on the wind from their pastures to ours.  JS says that the baby goats 'hit the ground running,' but they still look so helpless to me. (Something else for me to bundle up in a blanket on a cold windy night.)

No baby cows for us. No baby goats, either.  I feel badly for the baby goats across the road. That particular neighbor raises the goats for meat. Sooner or later, the goats end up on the chopping block, and then in the oven.  Good grief............. it's hard to even think about that.  When we first moved here, that neighbor offered us one of the goats..... he would "fix" it for me, he said, and all I'd have to do is cook it.  (Talk about getting weak in the knees.)  I politely thanked him and said no..... and resisted the urge to tell him that I just couldn't even think about cooking an animal that had just been prancing in a green pasture.

My husband and I walked around our property the other day, checking the bluebird boxes. (Actually, my husband was checking the boxes... I was just walking.)  A bunch of the boxes had nests in them (so neatly built with bits of grass!) and one of the nests had a couple of eggs in it.  We have so many bluebirds on the property... I guess they like the location of the boxes, and there must be enough food in the pastures for them, plus there's always water in the fountain.... all the comforts of home for those pretty little birds.

While we were walking the property, we also found the remains of a very small deer.  The bones weren't all in one spot, either, so my guess is that the coyotes pulled the poor thing apart.  Seeing those bones just about did me in..... so very sad, for that to happen to such a young deer.  I know that old saying about 'the survival of the fittest' in nature, but honestly, a baby is a baby, no matter the species.