Melons and Calves
A mini-stampede erupts in the distance and dust kicks up. It's dinner time for 14 pet calves. They gallop towards their next meal - a bucket of lucerne, barley, or fresh cut grass. This bucket, gripped tightly in your hand, is the major draw card for the calves as they quickly inch closer to you. The hip-high animals get up close and personal smelling whatever it is you got in the bucket. If they smell grass, freshly cut from the house lawn, they will nearly knock you down like its Saturday afternoon football to get their nostrils up close on the green juice. If it's something more exotic that the calves haven't tried before, like watermelon skin, then they will be a little reluctant at first until they have acquired a taste.
That was the case when I held out watermelon skin for one adventurous calf to try. The herd leader, a heifer (young female cow) edges closer to the me and the bucket of feed. She smells and licks my hand. Livestock, like a lot of animals, prefer to smell and taste instead of utilizing their sense of vision. It's not unusual to see sheep and cattle walking up to water and then smelling it before they drink.
Once the herd leader had chewed away at one piece of skin, it didn't take long for the others to follow suit. I'm sure they thought it was refreshing for such a hot day.
Besides eating watermelon skin, the calves are fed energy pellets (calcium, corn and other grains compacted into small cylindrical capsules) and barley every afternoon.
One of the best things about being on a property is feeding animals, especially when they learn the routine. Every afternoon at about 5PM the calves wait around until they hear the motorbike. Then they run alongside you to the feeding troughs. Dinner time....
Martin, this article is written very exquisitely. Follow your words, every scenario can be emerged in my brain. I can feel their cutey, sometimes like child. They use animal's way to communicate with you, you will feel no pressure and feel relaxed. But I think you just described them, you didn't add your feeling much, if you said you added, maybe it was too little and simple. So every time after reading, I always think this article shouldn't be ended, because it should have other things to share with us. Those things will make the article more full.
ReplyDeletePlease don't mind, in fact, I think this also was happened in your another article :Shanghai Feelin', You just described the appearance which you saw and experienced, and didn't dig deeply, even at last you ended the tail very quickly, I hadn't been ready for it.
Please forgive my direct. It's just a comment.
No need to apologize. I seem to keep my actual feelings away because of how I was trained as a journalist, not as a writer. But I will be more aware of this in the future. The differences between blogging and newspaper writing really can be versatile and different.
DeleteIt makes me think of your comment, when you said how you were perched on a tree during the night time. That was a great feeling you had there right?