Angel, Argyle, Gizmo, and Magnolia

Argyle anD his beloved Magnolia

We have four cattle. Not one of them was supposed to end up here.

Angel had two stillborn calves. On a working ranch where a cow is a line item, that line items get removed. A neighbor argued for her. Not a campaign, not a rescue operation, just one person making the case to another over a fence. She won.

Argyle was born male at an organic dairy. That's the whole story: male calves don't produce milk, so there was no reason to keep him. He's now inseparable from Magnolia, which would be sentimental if it weren't so .

Gizmo was raised in a 4-H program by a girl who cared for him for a year, got to the end of it, and couldn't put him on the trailer to the auction. That's a hard call for a fourteen-year-old, usually made under real pressure. She made it.

Magnolia was rejected by her mother and found malnourished with a broken hoof. Nobody spends money on a calf in that condition, so a ranch hand brought her to us with a plea. We nursed her back to health and bottle-fed her, and then she grew the way cattle grow, which is to say, alarmingly.

Angel, who comes by her name honestly

Gizmo, everyone’s big brother and best friend

Four animals, four separate small mercies.

And all four of them eat every day from November to April, when nothing grows here and every mouthful comes off a truck.

That's what the hay drive pays for. Not the dramatic part. The part after. The part that lasts their entire lives. We couldn’t care for them every day without you. Thank you.