Where Seedlings Grow

Life often is not straight forward and easy. Life on a farm, while full of pastoral idyll, is no different except in that the curveballs are often thrown by animals. In the case of this story, by a Jersey bull named Stitch.

Stitch belongs to a local family who we came in contact with when Ayelet, our Jersey-Holstein heifer, was pregnant with her first calf. They happened to be driving by, were in the market for a female, and wondered if Ayelet’s calf would be for sale at a future time.

That was three years ago.

Since that time, the family contacted me asking how we go got Ayelet bred as they had procured a female yet were now having the darndest time getting her pregnant.

I laid down my ace: Jacob is a cousin of the Creightons, and “we” simply walk Ayelet through the hay fields over to a Creighton bull, badda boom-badda bang, milk in the udder.

I write “we” as I really have nothing to do with it. Jacob, bless the man, is the one who went to the trouble of halter breaking the cow and leads her the forty minute walk to the pen. The disagreeable truth is that I am no milk maid, and Jacob does all the interacting with the cow. Is he a modern day Tevia? Tradition!

When I shared this information 18 months ago, it was the truth. Ayelet successfully bred after one or two nights with the Creighton bull with relatively little effort on our part.

Enter Thanksgiving 2024 when Ayelet comes into standing heat and we decide it is time to breed her back as we’ve been milking her for over a year.

Faithfully Jacob walks her to the stack yard and delivers her to the bull. The children and I accompany him, and we still make it to Jacob’s sister’s for dinner on time. Tirelessly, Jacob leads her back home the next day on his bicycle.

Unfortunately some 20 to 30 days later Ayelet shows signs of being in heat. Again Jacob steadfastly walks her to a Creighton bull, and home again some 24 to 48 hours later.

We are dismayed when again she comes into heat. We are stumped. Why is it not successful this time around? My mind keeps spinning to that romcom with Greg Kinnear, Someone Like You, about bulls that won’t visit a cow twice.

Jacob doesn’t lose hope, continues to milk to provide his children with a wholesome, clean food product, and hatches a plan to mingle her with the Creighton herd in warmer weather.

Then, a miracle from the Lord. Stitch’s owner contacts us out of the blue asking if we need stud service, they have a Jersey bull. We are floored. An answer to this nagging question! Yes! Yes, we will house this potentially dangerous, definitely unreliable and curious, creature so as to breed our cow.

Stitch arrives on Monday the fourteenth. He is unloaded, Ayelet shows him who is boss, and then they both settle down. He doesn’t charge the fences, or alarm Jacob when he feeds that evening.

Then, the curve ball. At lunch prep time I am in the kitchen and have no water. Baruch Hashem, it is spring break, and I simply tell Jacob the problem. I know he will fix the issue, it is likely just an irrigation snafu.

Well yes, Jacob can fix the problem. Unfortunately no, not simply a valve left open too long or a forgotten flick of the pump switch.

Stitch, delightful creature, was witnessed by Jacob nosing at a capped off sprinkler riser in the field the previous evening. Jacob had a spidey sense this was an issue. In the thick of married life with four young children, the premonition of a problem was shelved.

So now here we are at lunchtime, the heat of the day, and Jacob bravely goes out in the field to the end of the property with an unfamiliar, untested bull to dig a hole, fix the broken pipe, and restore order to the household. My heart is in my mouth, and my gut is clenched. He is deeply apologetic, quite disgusted at himself, not a mite concerned of the 500 pound animal with horns at his back as he digs lower and lower into the ground.

By the time he is done he is fully chest high in a wet hole, frequently needing to bend over so I can’t even see him as I watch anxiously from the yard. The bull and cow are near him though not seeming particularly interested. How thankful I am for a strong farmer to dig that hole. How blessed I am to be married to someone with the knowledge and skills to fix the broken pipe, who engineered its capping off in the first place. How sorry I am he is feeling foolish, missing his lunch, and dealing with this unexpected issue when he has so many other tasks he’d like to apply himself to.

Thank you Hashem for Jacob, and Stitch that rascal who will breed Ayelet.