Farm Drama

I had an Ag Committee meeting at work tonight and didn’t get out of it till 8:30.

I called Lynn expecting him to be starting the bedtime process with the girls.

Instead his terse voice came through “Can you come get the kids at this rented farm? We’ve got problems, the City left out bentonite clay and the cattle have been in it”

Well, crap.

So out to the farm I go in my new work dress and only nice pair of comfortable sandals. (If you know farm life, you know stepping foot on a farm in nice clothes is a death sentence for those clothes to be nice and not stained anymore)

The City is installing a new sewer line, and parts of it go through this pasture. Since we (by we, I mean the family farm) have signed a contract with the owner, the City said they would let us know of anything being done before it happened.
Well, someone dropped the ball on that and apparently cattle like to eat bentonite clay. Lynn estimated that the small herd of about 30head ate about 800lbs.

To put it in perspective, that herd of registered cattle is worth a lot more than three times my annual salary. (State job, 12 years experience and a M.S. degree…albeit I am a bit underpaid)

We didn’t know about the toxicity of what they had eaten having never had any experience with large amounts of bentonite ingestion before and called three Veterinarians. It being almost 9pm One didn’t answer, One said she was optimistic about it and One looked it up and called us back and said in small amounts it would be fine, but no one knows about such large amounts…keep an eye on them. (Thanks awesome Vets for calling back)

Lynn was in such a rush to get out there when his phone rang that he threw the pajama clad children in the truck barefoot. After they had got the cattle moved away from the clay, I brought the yawning (but thoroughly enjoying the adventure) kids home while Hubby and Father in law waited for someone to come move the pallets.

We don’t have a tractor there right now or we would move it….they don’t want to move a tractor down there at night because they might get hit by one of the vehicles that fly down that backroad. The keys to the equipment that is parked in the pasture was in the pocket of a worker who was two hours away. So the men are waiting for him.

I’ve got to be in Knoxville tomorrow morning for a 4-H event, so no sleeping in for my poor tired babies.

We will wait, watch and pray all the cows, calves and the bull are fine. I’m encouraged by what the Veterinarians said.

Goodnight friends it’s past my bedtime!