Letters from Henrietta: Day 453

Mom!

How are you??!   I haven't seen you for a while!  Have you been with the other cows in the far pasture?   I noticed that Loretta's and Hope's mother are in with us all but I haven't seen you for a while.  I hope you're ok!  (Editor's note: To appropriately characterize what happened to Henrietta's mother, please sing "The Circle of Life" from Disney's The Lion King.)

Anyways, the other heifers and I are wondering what's going on.  About nine months ago, the farmer put in Clark (he's a little slow, but good looking) with us and things were just crazy for about a month!  And now, the other heifers are getting pretty fat.  And, parts on them are getting much larger than they usually are!  It's so weird!  Three of us had a visit from Clark earlier than the others, so the farmer has been walking through us several times a day and sometimes during the night.

He has this really bright flashlight.  He shines it all over us, but mostly our backsides, and then he sometimes scratches our butts.  We like the butt scratching, but the flashlight is really annoying.   It's so hard to see the silage on the ground for our midnight and 4 am snacks after we look at the light!

Loretta and Hope found the sand pile through the snow today!  We gave each other sand masks to do a little pre-summer exfoliating!  Lewis' mother got the sand all over herself.  She looked almost like a black Angus (Editor's note: she's a red Angus).

We had some fun the other day; back when it was really snowing hard, the farmer was pulling frozen tires off our pile of food which is covered with black plastic.  We all decided to gather around to watch.  The farmer was jumping on the tires first, then would grab onto them and make all sorts of funny noises while trying to pull them up.  When he did get them up, he often would slip and fall down.  Evidently, walking on two feet is a little more difficult than walking on four.  But, the heifers and I suspect that the farmer is actually a bit clumsy as he has nearly fallen several times while checking on us over the past few days.

Also, mom.  That farmer really needs some help with his fashion choices.  The other night, he walked over to where Loretta was laying down in the old pig sheds.  Loretta saw his tattered old chore coat and it scared her so badly, she jumped up and ran through the back of the shed.  She even broke a big board on her way out!  But Loretta has always been a bit of a fashionista.  I think she just couldn't take that old coat he wears all the time and decided a little non-verbal communication was necessary.

Anyways, I hope you're doing well, mom!  We're having a great time over here.  Today, we had about 200 geese in the field with us.  They were kind of fun.  Except that they kept honking.  And didn't stop.  Ever.  Thankfully, they left the field at night.  I think the farmer was eyeballing his shotgun, but thought better of it.    That's all for now, mom!  Sorry it's been so long since I've written.  We've been so busy!

Love,

Henrietta