The Farmer's Son

by John Connell

  “It’s been a while since I did that,” he said simply.

  “That was amazing.”

  I have never seen him play again. My father the cowboy.

  Do Cows Dream of Electric Sheep?

  The cows spend a great deal of the day sitting down in the shed. This is not out of laziness but of nature, for to digest their food they must sit and regurgitate their fodder and chew it once more to fully break it down. This is known as chewing the cud, and a cow can put in many hours at this activity. I was told once that it also gives the animal something to do and so prevents boredom. Cows, unlike pigs, can amuse themselves.

  As a result of so much sitting in their cubicles, their hair becomes matted with dried dung and muck and they take on a lizardlike appearance, with scales for skin instead of a pelt. It is a peculiar thing to see, but I do not try to remove the hard hair, for it will go once they are outside again.

  Cows sleep for only a few hours a day, and even then, not all in one go, but in snatches. It is, I suppose, an adaptive trait to help them stay semialert and ready to flee should predators appear. At night, the cow sleeps as the calf does, wrapped onto itself and nustling its head upon its flanks. It is said that cows enter the REM sleep state just as humans do; this is where dreams are born.

  Walking through the shed, I see their closed eyes flutter. I see their barrel chests rise and fall and occasionally a jitter of a leg or shiver of their flank. Of what they dream, I do not know. Of being outside in the fields, perhaps? I know that Vinny dreams of running, for I have seen his legs move that way in his sleep, but a dog is easier to understand than a cow. I walk slowly through the shed, but I do not want to rouse them, for a sleep-deprived cow is a wicked cow and might lash out at her fellows or at us. I leave a small light on so I can see that everything is OK.

  Occasionally, no matter how quiet I am, they waken and slowly stand to their feet.

  “It’s OK,” I say softly. “Go on back.”

  They are slow and cumbersome getting up, but the fact that they can stand makes me happy. I have seen cows “go down” more than once. It happens during labor when the calf is too big and the mother suffers small ruptures or damage to her pelvis or nerves. If a cow goes down in labor, we are quick to make her stand, for she might not get up again. Mostly they recover and the shock wears off and they are fine, but on other occasions shock gives way to inactivity. If they do not stand after three days, the muscles of their legs begin to waste and then they shall never be able to stand.

  Years ago now, we had this happen. She was a black cow. I was but a boy then and did not fully understand her true ailments. In the end, we lifted her with hoists and ropes and she stood for a time, and we congratulated ourselves that she would be OK. But when she tried to walk, we knew it was too late—her leg muscles had faded away. She limped to the drinker and sat down, and never stood again. She was culled from the herd two days later. We called her the Little Black.

  I remembered this cow years later, when I was twenty-one and a homesick exchange student in Sydney. I had taken a writing class as part of my journalism studies and my teacher in Australia urged me on to write something true and of myself. I wrote the story of the Little Black and, in thinking then of my childhood and the farm, my homesickness carried across the page. It was a cow that gave me my first taste of being a writer.

  As I walk through the black, dark night, I listen to Philip Glass on my headphones. Up above I can see the stars. It is one of the most wondrous things of living here in the countryside, for on these night shifts I have seen the heavens pour out above me. I have seen the stars and the dust around them. I have seen the hunting moon of January, Venus shining brightly, and the Milky Way as I have never seen it before.

  The ancient Egyptians believed that the Milky Way was a pool of cow’s milk made by Bat, the cow goddess of fertility. On the nights when I have been tending to the cows and I look up, I cannot help but think I am part of some age-old ritual, that the act of milking a newly calved mother is in some way connected to the birth of whole galaxies in some far reach of the universe. We live our lives—the cows and I, and Ma and Da too—under this Milky Way. Perhaps it is of those celestial bodies that the animals sometimes dream.

  Holding

  The cows are faring well at the moment, but Da has said he is unhappy with this year’s crop of calves: there are few standouts among them. The stock bull is not breeding so well. Mam and he have talked, and they think that perhaps it is time for a change. From now on, Da has decided to use outside sperm to artificially inseminate the cows that come into heat, instead of letting the bull to them.

  Uncle Paul, the former mayor of the county, was once an artificial insemination, or AI, man and he has agreed to do this for us. Since retiring from politics, Paul has more free time and we are happy to see him. A year ago, Da and Rory, our neighbor, went halves on a nitrogen flask in which to store the straws of sperm and keep them fresh.

  A cow will come into heat every twenty-one days, in what is known as estrus. At this time she will exhibit clear signs; she will stand and present herself. Her sisters will rise on her and attempt to cover her, for I suppose the pheromones grow so strong they feel they must act. She will be a-bulling, as we call it, true and proper, for only twenty-four hours, during which she is most receptive and the sperm will most likely take with her, so it is in this time that we must act.

  In preparation for insemination, in the morning we take her to the lower shed and place her in the headlock. A cow in heat can be a bit more temperamental than normal, for she is full of hormones.

  At two p.m. Paul arrives, and we have a flask of warm water waiting. The water must be at the right temperature to defrost the frozen sperm: too hot and the sperm will die, too cold and they will not thaw out.

  Paul removes the straw of sperm from the liquid nitrogen flask and quickly places it in the water. After some forty seconds, the straw is placed in an AI gun. Paul slips on a plastic glove and inserts his hand up the cow’s rectum, from where he will direct the straw as it is inserted into the beast’s vulva. When everything is in place, he presses the gun and the sperm are released. It is a precise and delicate process, for if the sperm are not in the uterus, they will die and no fertilization shall take place. Every straw costs money and we cannot waste them.

  He nods, then smiles to us, for he has done the job. He releases himself from the cow’s embrace and she moos gently. The operation is over.

  “She should hold,” he says.

  “What bull did you put on?” I ask.

  “CF52,” Da says.

  “He was a great one,” says Paul.

  He cleans himself, removing the sodden plastic glove and disposing of the used needle. We will leave the cow on her own for a few hours and mark her time on the calendar. We shall not know until next month if she has taken. If she does not come into heat then, we know it has been a success. A cow’s pregnancy lasts as long as a woman’s, but so much can happen in nine months. In this, as in so many things on the farm, we must be patient.

  We do not use AI so much on our farm, but in American feedlots it is now standard for entire herds of hundreds of beef cattle to be put in calf by this method, often using semen from a single bull. Some breeding bulls are so successful that they can alter the genetic fabric of a breed. Sadly for the bull, the semen is collected by hand and he remains a virgin all his life.

  Our job done, we relax and hope that the sperm will do their work. Paul and Da share a small whiskey and talk of politics.

  The Store

  I have run out of nuts for the ewes and must go to the store. We have been buying from a place in the nearby town, but today Da says it would be better to go to McKeon. He is a local man who has set up a store in the parish and we admire his entrepreneurial streak. His business has taken off and he now stocks feed for all animals, as well as fertilizer and feeding troughs and barriers.

  “Ten should do,” I say.

  Da agrees and I set off in t
he jeep through the village and up Soran Hill. The Connells came to Longford with the Irish Rebellion of 1798. We had been rebels under Theobald Wolfe Tone, the leader of the United Irishmen. The rebellion had been born of the want for freedom inspired by both the French and American revolutions, but which ultimately turned into a bloody and brutal affair. Old Connell, so the story goes, traveled up from the south of the country with the rebels, leading him to the final decisive battle in Ballinamuck, in the north of the county. The British forces resoundingly defeated the rebels, and with them a generation’s dreams of freedom.

  Granny still talks of that time. She surprised me one day a few weeks ago with the story of Hempenstall, the British lieutenant in charge of suppressing the United Irishmen in this area during the 1798 Rebellion. He was so big that he could hang a man over his shoulder until dead, and became known as “the walking gallows.”

  Hempenstall was so effective at his work that he commanded a platoon of men known as the Terrors of the Midwest. When the Battle of Ballinamuck was lost, the local rebel leaders led a small force of men to the town of Granard. There they faced the Terrors, and in a twist that only history and not writers can allow, this giant of the British was met by the biggest Irishman in the county, O’Farrell, who himself stood at seven feet tall. O’Farrell beat Hempenstall in a fistfight, but the rebels lost the day, and with that, the war.

  The defeated men were then tortured, and many were trampled to death by a pack of bullocks driven by the British. Those who survived the trampling were roped by the neck and slung over Hempenstall’s shoulder. These things were not recorded in the letters of General Cornwallis, the lord lieutenant of Ireland and commander in chief of the British forces, but they have been passed down through the generations. These inherited memories are in the mind of a ninety-year-old woman still.

  The jeep chugs up the hill and my Bob Marley CD skips a beat as I brake quickly and take the turn for the feed store. McKeon himself is not there. One of his men takes my order and helps me load the ten bags of nuts. They will keep the sheep going for another few weeks, for we are only halfway through the lambing.

  Next year I hope to perform a controlled pregnancy, called sponging, on the sheep. It brings all the ewes into heat at the same time, so we can then put them with the rams and, five months later, all the births will take place during the same week. It makes for a busy but shorter lambing period. This drawn-out lambing is too hard on both man and beast. And while we are coping well now, tiredness is lurking and our luck may turn.

  The cost of the nuts is added to our account, and I take the docket and leave. I drive home, unload the bags and prepare for the evening feeding.

  Emergency

  I have been out running in the forest. I had only planned to go for a short five-kilometer run, but I have been running for two or more hours—the distance of a half marathon—and my legs are sore. The day is bright and I am making the most of the sunshine.

  When the sun dips lower I must get ready for the evening feeding. I face for home, taking my final turn, and head back through the forest to the car park.

  Out of breath now, I walk slowly towards the jeep. I am thirsty and tired and looking forward to a good hot shower. I check my phone and there are many, many missed calls from Da and I know in that moment something is wrong. He only calls me when there is an emergency or he is looking for something. I curse myself for not taking the phone on my run, for I see the calls were made within the last two hours. Perhaps something has happened to him? To Mam? I have a sudden image of Mam finding Da stretched out in the yard, dead from a heart attack.

  I make to call him but my phone dies and now I have the added panic of no connection. I turn on the phone once more in the hope there is a little battery left. I call and hear it ring.

  “Come home now, you fucking bollox. Where the fuck are you?”

  “What? What’s wrong?” I have not the time to thank God that he has not had a heart attack.

  “I’ve a calf about to die. Get back here!”

  He hangs up then. My heart is racing. There will be a row. I had told him I was going for a run, but he is in a rage and there will be no use talking to him of the past. My heart is still racing as I drive back fast through the country roads. It will be fifteen minutes before I am home, and I know that he will stew and stew in that time. His words have undone the calmness of my run, and I can feel the stress within my body.

  I return home and find him so enraged that he will not speak with me properly. I can tell he is now a prisoner to his anger.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask once more.

  “There’s only a fucking calf dying out here and you never even noticed him.”

  “Which one?”

  He does not answer me and grunts.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Put the fucking trailer on the jeep and take the calf to the vet before he is dead.”

  “Calm down,” I say.

  “Just put the trailer on!”

  “Calm fucking down. I still don’t know what calf you are talking about.”

  He will not answer me.

  I drive the jeep up the yard and attach the small blue sheep trailer, which is big enough to take a calf. I drive back to the shed, reverse the jeep and trailer in the door and walk out. I will not lose my cool. I must be the eye of the storm. It is better not to speak now, for every word will be used and thrown against me.

  Da is waiting in the calf creep. It is the big red calf that had the scour all those weeks ago. He is lying curled up. He had been this way this morning, but I had thought him sleeping. Together we push the calf up and I load him into the trailer myself. Da does not help me, and I know he blames me for this illness.

  I do not ask which vet to go to. I shall go to Gormley, for he is the curer of calves. He is old and wise and has saved many beasts for us. It is only on my drive away that the thought occurs to me: Why did Da not call Davy and borrow his jeep if the calf was that sick? Or why did he not arrange for the vet to come here if it was so bad? Perhaps he is angry at himself for missing the calf. Perhaps he has only just come and found the calf. I do not know. All that matters now is that I am going to the vet. All that matters now is that the calf live.

  Gormley has been our family vet for many years. He was old in my childhood and is near eighty now. He is of the old breed of vets. Almost a figure out of time he is, sharp, with a vast intellect, and educated better than most of the men he meets. He is our James Herriot and Siegfried Farnon rolled into one. The initial panic now over, I settle myself.

  “It cannot be all so bad, Red,” I say aloud to the sick calf behind me. “It cannot be.”

  Gormley is not at his practice when I arrive. His daughter tells me he will be there soon. I will wait. I try to call Da to tell him I have arrived, but my phone is fully dead now. It will not turn on.

  The practice consists of Gormley alone. It is odd, but he has never taken on an apprentice nor expanded. When he is gone, there will be no other to take his place. Perhaps that is why he has worked so long. To stop now would be the end of him and all he has built. I have known Gormley since I was a boy, but we have never truly talked, he and I, for he is a man of few words, and to him I am but another farmer’s son, another call in the night. Or I am not even that: I am the beast’s illness and how it must be treated. I should like to talk with him of other things, but I know we never shall. That is the way it is and must be.

  He arrives at half four and I tell him my problems. He nods and asks to inspect the calf. He takes his stethoscope from around his neck and waits while I open the trailer door and wrestle the calf out. The calf does not put up much of a fight, though there is still vigor in him.

  “How long has he been like this?”

  “We only noticed today.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Three months.”

  “Is he sucking his mother?”

  “I saw him suck yesterday.”

  He moves his hands
along the beast’s legs, sighs and clucks his tongue.

  “He has an infection, it’s got a bad hold of him, he’s had it for a while. Has he been sick?”

  “He had a scour a while back but I treated him and it cleared.”

  “He probably picked it up then.”

  “Will he be OK? Will he live?”

  “He should be fine once I’ve treated him.”

  I sigh and smile. It is not so bad, Red, we will get you fixed up. The stress begins to leave my body. Gormley tells me to hold the calf while he prepares an injection. He walks into his dispensary. I never ask what medicines he gives, for they are often of his own making. I have seen him mix old bottles with powders and solutions to create some magic, life-restoring brews.

  He returns and injects the calf and pats him on the head.

  “That’s a long-acting solution. He should be fine in a few days. If he hasn’t started to improve in three days, come and see me again.”

  “Thank you, Brian.”

  “That will do,” he replies and leaves me. I load Red back into the trailer.

  He will add the visit to our account. It will be sixty euro or more. The calf is a good calf, so it will be worth the effort. When I return home, Da is not in the yard. I unload the calf and return him to the creep. Rest is all that can be given now. His mother cries out to him and he responds. He seems brighter, I think. I cannot be sure, but I think he is not going to die. The vet has said as much. He will pull through.

  I will not mention the row to Ma. There was a time I told her of every fight, but there is no point anymore. Da has not foddered the animals, and so I must now begin the feeding. I do not know where he is. It is better I do not know.