It was time to leave for home. The surgical suite was polished to perfection our work was done, and the hot August day beckoned. Just as my partner and I started for the changing room the phone rang. She passed it to me.

The voice on the phone was out of breath and upset, "Bonnie, can you come to the farm, Bob needs you?", my friend Sandy yelled.

"What for, what’s wrong?" was all I could manage with my mind racing through various scenarios? She explained that Bobs’ prize cow, Wickie, had a large slash cut in her back. He was upset. The cow was crazy, and the two veterinarians on call were out on other emergencies. And this could not wait Wickie was a show cow, the best of his Holstein herd, and a prize winning champion. I had heard about Wickie and her personality disorder, and I knew this would be a challenge. And I also realized that this was too much temptation, too good an experience to miss, and would help a friend at the same time. So, I agreed to go to the farm.

Bob and Sandy had a dairy farm in Castle Frederick, just outside of Windsor, Nova Scotia. The farm land itself was massive, with corn fields, apple orchards, the best milk producing Holsteins around, and all in all it was a massive enterprise built up by the family. Bob had done a magnificent job of building it up after the death of his dad at the age of fifty-two, when Bob himself was just fourteen years old. He finished his schooling, took over the family farm at that young age, and went full speed ahead, working day and night. Eventually Bob married and started a family, and has two lovely daughters and a son who is a clone of his dad. Bob is fifty-two himself now, and thinks of his dad often. His daughter has studied agriculture and is to be the farm manager someday.

His mother lived in the big farmhouse, Bob, Sandy and the three children lived in the smaller farmhouse next door. Bob worked eighteen hour days, calves were born, cows got sick and at all hours of the day or night Bob did his farming with the help of a sister, a brother-in-law and the rest of the family. And he built Bovidae Farm into one of the finest dairy operations in Nova Scotia.

We socialized when Bob had time, he never forgave me for taking him and Sandy to see the movie ‘Cujo’, which left him with nightmares, and I never forgave him for the answer he gave me when I asked how he prepared a cow for artificial insemination, or ‘AI’ as they referred to it. I thought it was a sensible question, but Bob looked at me, grinned and said "Just a little lipstick!" I was angry! I was not that stupid. I knew about fishing, not farming. But it was all a laugh, and Bob has a joyful laugh that is contagious. He is a big man, with a big heart, full of life and spirit. One year he was ‘Canadas’ Best Young Farmer’, quite an honor for one so young.

No bulls roamed around his cows, they were all entered by number into a computer and when the time came to have them bred he had the artificial inseminators breed them with the best genetic bull stock, and he built one fine, well producing herd. Modern farming with a good old fashioned hands on work, that was Bovidae Farm. He explains that his farm is called ‘Bovidae’ because it is Latin for ‘cattle’. His choice cows have a special magnet neck ring that opens the feed trough by pulling the metal key with the use of the magnet and they get extra feed. Yes, a fine farm, well run, and Bob and his Black Labrador named Jeff, ran day and night. So what in the world would they need me for on a Sunday morning. I was no farmer. Sandy proceeded to tell me that Wickie, named because she was so darn ‘wicked’, got away and got caught under the silo and slit her back badly. She needed stitches. Bob had all the equipment but nobody could stitch, so they thought "Ah, ah, Bonnie, the Operating Room guru–we’ll call her!"

So that is how it started. They said just to wear old clothes, rubber boots, and come quickly! I arrived to see Bob, Sandy, and another young man holding Wickie in a stall. She was bleeding but oblivious to her pain, she was more concerned with inflicting pain on humans, and intense pain if she could! Manure was splattered all over the stall, Bob had a face full of it, Sandy was almost unrecognizable, and the young man was red from pulling on this wicked Wickie who had become an ox all of a sudden. She was one mad, mad, cow that day!

Bob yanked out a stool, got me up on it, and handed me the sutures, while

the other two held the cow, I stitched and Bob cut the sutures and poured penicillin into the wound. Wickie spit, kicked, bit, threw herself at us, stopped to get a breath and started all over again. We were exhausted, and it was a long slash to stitch. Then more fresh manure, kicked around a bit, then more spittle, but gradually the stitches got finished. We all held onto this large mad cow, Bob patted her, she bit him, he gave her water, she spit at him, Sandy was gathering up the suture kit, the young man was up in the hayloft, and we were all covered from head to toe in sweat, silage and manure. When it looked as though she would settle Bob backed us all out of the stall, and closed the gate. Then Wickie turned around, faced us all and spat full force in our faces!

"There, take that!" she was saying. This was no manner of etiquette for a trophy bovine. But you didn’t mess with this debutante cow, which is what started the whole thing in the first place. Bob brought her out to groom her for a show and she wasn’t in the mood. And she was not going to be either. She was mad, mad, mad, and planned on staying that way!

In a week Bob removed the stitches .Nobody else would approach that formidable animal. Wickie continued on in her aristocratic manner, was bred again the ‘AI’ way, and lived a grand life. She refused to go to prize shows She still had her neck magnet, she allowed herself to be milked, and was still a valuable resource for the farm. But to this day when any of us hear of ‘Mad Cow Disease’ our minds go back to the ten showers and baths it took to remove signs and smells of our ‘mad cow attack’, and we still have to admire the tenacity of a royal cow named befittingly-‘WICKIE’, who is still strutting around Bovidae Farm , daring anyone to put her into stitches again And that is just fine with me! And with Bob also!

 Bonnie Jarvis-Lowe, RN. Ret.d

"It's not what you are that holds you back, it's what you think you are not."  Elbert Hubbard

 

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