Not for the faint of heart

Not much else to say.



This is pretty much a day in the life, it is being written on the fly, you'll get what I type and that is it. Something of an effort in Gonzo journalism in honour of the good doctor.

I was awoken this morning by shouting. This was approximately 08.45. It was my dad shouting. My awesome strength (bear this in mind) was needed to help deliver a calf. Not in the An Post sense either.

Nature had fucked this cow over, and the calf was coming backwards.

A quick note on reproductive biology - animals are generally born head first, actually preceded by the forelimbs. When this does not happen it's like trying to put the wide end of a wedge into the crack to split the log. Not good.

A quick note on calving jacks - basically a winch that that butts against the animals hind quarter and pulls the young out by means of attaching ropes to the ankles, above the knuckle. (Awesome strength required)

I arrived on scene to note that the calving process had been going on for some time (not good - fatigue, closing of the cervix and the potential death of the calf). We applied the jack and began.

Archimedes never envisaged the application of leverage to the tail end of a cow, with me as the prime mover. We jacked, the tension built, little or no movement. We jacked more. Some movement, slowly and surely we jacked - CRACK. The ropes had tightened so much that one leg had snapped, not off but broken.

The only recourse, is to move the ropes up, above the knees. So we did and again began to apply pressure. Even if the animal is dead it still has to come out. Slow and steady pressure, slow and steady ratcheting. CRACK!!!

A break above the knee.

It is worth pointing out that the calf was in our estimation dead at this stage. The vet was called, in the belief that he might cut the calf into sections internally and remove him in such a fashion (I've assigned a gender for simplicity).

The vet arrived nearly an hour later, a drug called oxytocin was administered which aids the natural process of pushing out the remaining placenta. This and some further jacking removed the calf intact.

This is where it got messy. It appears that the calf had been misshapen and mutated. It had malformed fore legs, a compacted neck and no spine/ribs from the calf equivalent of T1 - S1. With this there was no muscular wall around the abdomen and the contents of the calf spilled freely across the floor. He had it would appear been dead for quite some time and had he not he would not have made it.

After this I went home and had breakfast, being in a rush earlier on. I had peanut butter and porridge because I had no kiwi to make a smoothie.

I do pilates on a sunday morning with some friends. Then I lifted some weights, maxing out at 110kg front squat for one rep after a sizable build up (I strongly recommend Crossfit to everyone).

A meal (mango smoothie and boiled egg) followed, a shower next and I was on my way to town. I arrived in town about 17.45. Posted a letter and went to the hard rock for an overpriced but tasty steak. Our waitress was pleasant but a little on the skinny side for my particular tastes.

I ate and left to go to the cinema. Smokin' Aces, never has a film with so cool a set up, so many great moments and characters failed to deliver. A tad disappointing.

Ran a little through town, cardio not up to much. Got a bus home. Wrote this.

All this actually happened.

My first real driving experience

I have since been driving for some time, even miraculously getting a full licence. I've killed several other animals but this really stands out. Mainly because of the speed. I was at my most careful and could not stop. Everything since then has been a furious race car pace and the animal looks to have been trying his luck. No heart and no luck. I'm not cruel just reckless and fallible. Via Con Dios. I have recently taken up driving. I can no longer, it would appear anyway, hide behind a mask of enviro-conscious non-committal laissez faire dithering like this sentence. I must learn it would appear. So on my first night out a police car pulled across in front of me with no prior warning and without so much as a how do you do. I steeled myself against this and continued on this road, at I might point out only 45kmph. It was at this point that the meanest cat that I've ever seen stepped into the road. He looked like one of those grizzled old cowboys that Clint Eastwood plays. Rheumy old eye, chunk missing from his ear and a permanent leer. Now maybe this cat was convinced that there was no traffic as I held it back for the best part of twenty minutes at my learners pace or maybe he was the ballsiest S.O.B. of a cat ever to walk the planet. Whatever his intention He looked me straight in the eye and did not move. I drove on, still he did not move, I could not swerve either into the children playing or the oncoming traffic and the car behind me was so close, with the frustration of following in my speed, that I could not brake. Thump!! The cat, he is no more. The children, they did not look happy. I kept on driving. Maybe the cat after a life full of pleasures, cat pleasures, felt it time to end it in a dignified act befitting the dignity he had always tried to live his life with. Fuck it anyway, I don't like cats.