Trillium was less than a week old when we brought her home. Despite what most seasoned highland breeders warned, I went out and got a bottle calf to start the herd. Her mother had some sort of health issue that resulted in her needed to be raised this way, so with that; we took our little ford focus out to Amenia, NY and brought her home. She fit in the trunk , and after the initial start to the drive she settled down just fine for the ride.
She warmed up to us fast as most bottle calves do. She started out in a calf hutch with a small panel run. Though we often let her out to run around the yard and follow us around. I recall thinking how much she reminded me of a bison calf in these early days.
Trillium was the name we gave her, Trilly for short. My favorite wildflower, it was the perfect fit of a name. When I see trilliums, I think of my Grandmother, who strategically made some appear in her garden each Spring. She worked hard on her gardens and they were a staple on the property that was Unique Acres before me. It's the flower I remember best from her gardens, therefore it seemed a great name to restart the legacy.
Trillium wasn't registered or registerable, which was okay with me. The idea of getting a bottle calf was so that I could raise her from a calf and really learn how to take care of one cow before I bought more. An incident in attempting to bring a different cow home a few months earlier made me realize that I needed to start simple. So I did, and she was quickly becoming very friendly and easy to handle. The worry with bottle beef cows is that they can be headstrong and a potentially dangerous as adults. It was worth the risk for me though, I knew with any cow comes the potential to make a tough decision some day regarding safety.
She would grow to be a little much at times, but not unsafe; just bold in her approach to me. In her youngest days, she enjoyed running around the farm. She did not enjoy halter training but she learned well. She loved her bottle but grain was quickly beginning to grow on her. Trillium was working out to be a lovely first cow.
I had no idea what the future held with Trillium, I had no major plans, other than to raise her well and see where that took me. As she grew, and Aine (our Holstein) grew it was apparent we would soon need a pasture to put these cows in. Unique Acres would soon start to take shape, as we began to plan the move to their first fenced in field. More on this later.
Trillium marked the start of a new generation for Unique Acres. Though she was not from the lineage of my grandfathers cows, she was my first and that is what counts. My grandfather wouldn't have cared about lineage, he would've just hoped I'd be enjoying myself and doing it all for the love of the cows. I like to think he would've been proud to at least have his farm name back active again. This is the beginning to a story that means a lot to me to tell. A story of growth and adventure, I hope you'll enjoy following along.
No comments:
Post a Comment