Another Witch, Another February, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I turned into the old farm’s long driveway off of Cochran Creek Road, north of Brownsville. I had been here only a couple of times before. The farm did have some character, with an old barn nestled up against a hillside, and an old trailer not far from the barn that served as the living quarters.

Duane had lost his wife some years ago and lived by himself now. They had planned to build a house, but I think Duane was content to live in the trailer for now. He was a well-built guy whose black hair was accented by patches of gray at both temples.

This February has been particularly wet, with heavy rains almost every day. Massive dark clouds filled the sky this afternoon.

Duane had called about a cow with some sort of a prolapse. But he didn’t leave any instructions about where he had the cow. We stopped at the corral that was out by the main road. We had worked cows in this corral before.

“I hope she’s not in this corral, it looks like it is a sea of mud from the rains,” I said more to myself than to Joleen. “At least it is not freezing.”

“Oh no,” Joleen said as we pulled up to the corral. “That mud must be a foot deep. The good thing is there is no cow, and I don’t see Duane.”

“Let’s go on up to the barn,” I said. “I don’t know if he uses it except for picture taking, but if he does, we might be undercover if these clouds decide to dump buckets on us.”

At one time, it had been a functional barn. Now it was picturesque but aged almost beyond use. Himalayan briers reached high on the sides of the barn. There were a few openings through the vines that were kept open by foot traffic. There were multiple holes visible in the roof from missing shingles, and the barn wood was weathered by time to a delicate steel gray. The barn looked like it should grace a canvas in someone’s living room.

Duane stepped out from under the barn’s front part and waited for us in a pathway through the berry vines. The barn sat against the hill, and the slope provided enough room under the front of the barn for a small corral. At least we would be dry.

A large Santa Gertrudis cow stood in the middle of the corral. She looked less than happy at all the attention she was getting. There was nowhere for her to go in the cramped space, but the big red cow turned a few circles looking. I slipped a rope over her head.  The only place to tie her was to the support beam in the corral center. 

“I hope she doesn’t pull the barn down on top of us,” Joleen said as I started an exam on the old cow.

She suffered from a problem that I had often seen in these Brahman-Cross breeds. As they approached the calving date, their cervix becomes enlarged and inflamed. Just this distended cervix hung from her vulva.

“This shouldn’t be much of a problem to fix,” I said to Duane. “But you are going to have to watch her close until she delivers.”

I knew from experience that Duane was not one of those guys who called at 3:00 in the morning with a calving problem. I would have to do a closure on this vulva so that it would tear out quickly if she goes into labor.

Joleen sat out the necessary supplies to do an epidural injection for anesthesia to the vulva. I prepped a small area over her spine, where the tail joined the sacrum. The cow was standing quietly. Standing on her right rear, I grasped the tail with my left hand and palpated for the space between the bones that would allow access for the needle into the spinal canal. With a finger of my right hand on the site, I popped a needle into the space.

The cow jumped. Almost in slow motion, I watched her right leg come up and felt her hock brush my left thigh. In younger days, I maybe could have responded to this stimulus. Now I just sort of observed the symmetry of motion. Her lower leg moved across my thigh roughly. Finally, after a brief eternity, her hoof caught my inner thigh. She extended her leg briskly.

Feeling somewhat like a golf ball that flies into the air off the clubface, I am launched in a sloppy cartwheel toward the distant tangle of berry vines. The next thing I know, I’m picking myself up. Joleen, hushed and concerned, is helping me up, unhooking the grasping vines.

“You damn witch!” I say to the cow, picturing a large pile of hamburger. My thigh is throbbing. It takes no small amount of force to knock me ten or twelve feet.

I get another rope and tie the cow a little more securely. I finish the epidural injection and clean and replace the cervix quickly. My only thought is to get ice on my thigh. I throw a quick closure across the vulva using hog rings and small cotton umbilical tape. The hog rings only pinch a small piece of skin, they will easily tear out with a slight push from mamma.

“She should be able to tear this out when she calves, but you need to watch her closely,” I instruct Duane as we hastily throw things back into the truck. I grab an ice pack out of the cooler and set it on my thigh as I start to pull out of the barnyard.

Spotting a cow out in the field with a pair of feet sticking out of the vulva. Jolene opens her window and hollers at Duane.

“How long has she been in labor?”

“Damnit, Joleen, I need to get this leg iced,” I say with a frown.

“You can handle that, can’t you?” I ask Duane. “She probably will pop that out with no problem.”

“Oh sure, that is no problem for me,” Duane says. “I didn’t even know she was close.”

My thigh has turned multiple shades of red by the time we get back to the office in Sweet Home. It is not the first time I’ve been kicked, and probably won’t be the last. It always seems that it is my left thigh. I’ll limp for a few days with this one.

Photo by Helena Lopes from PexelsCopy

Hallowed Ground, Prefaced, From the Archives

Preface

  I have posted this story before on this blog, but it is the most fitting story I have for a Memorial Day post. It speaks to the tremendous sacrifice suffered from a small group of farm families living along the banks of Catching Creek, a small tributary to the Coquille River.

I grew up in Oregon’s Coquille River Valley in the 1940s and 1950s. After a stretch in the US Army from 1965 to 1969, I returned to school and graduated from Colorado State University School of Veterinary Medicine in 1975. I practiced in the foothills of the Oregon Cascade Mountains for 40 years.

The loss of my close childhood friend, Don Miller, was the driving force for my return to school following my tour in the US Army.

             Dave Larsen

Hallowed Ground

D. E. Larsen, DVM

  We hurried across the cow bridge at the upper end of Uncle Dutch’s farm. We were in a hurry because we planned to hunt up to the Bartlett farm this afternoon. This would require us to cross Catching Creek one more time, and that crossing would have no bridge. Don Miller and I were in the fall of our 8th-grade year. Living on neighboring farms out of Myrtle Point, we hunted ducks and anything else along the creek as often as we could.

  Don was a little smaller than I, but we were both stout young men and growing as we hurried along. I had on pair of hand-me-down hip boots. Don was in tennis shoes. That meant that I would have to carry Don across the creek piggyback. 

 As we rushed across the field toward Bartlett’s lower ground, a ruffed grouse sprang from the creek bank. We generally collected several wood ducks on these evening hunts. Occasionally, we would run into a flock of mallards. If we were lucky, a China rooster would cross our path. But this grouse was an unexpected surprise, and he was quickly dispatched.

  We had been hunting the creek for a couple of seasons now, and we were crack shots with our shotguns. We knew every riffle in the stream, and we knew where we could expect ducks. Most of the time, we didn’t have enough time to get this far up the creek. We would have to hurry to get back to our fields to shot ducks as they came back down the creek heading to roost in the swamp near town.

  When we came to the creek crossing, I pulled my boots up, and Don jumped on my back. With Don holding both shotguns, we crossed the creek with no problems. We had worried about this ford when we were planning to hunt higher in the creek. We hunted along the creek in Bartlett’s lower field, jumping a group of mallards. Don and I both added a large mallard drake to our bag. This was a great addition to our typical hunt.

  As we headed back down the creek, I stumbled while carrying Don across the ford. We came close to ending up in the water. I did recover my balance and ran the last few steps to the far bank. We sat and rested and laughed at the near disaster. We knew it would have made the trip down the creek a chilly walk.

  We had about a mile to go. We didn’t need to follow the creek going down. We had jumped all the ducks on the way up the creek. We just wanted to get to our field at the base of the Cowhorn (our field was named for its shape, the Cowhorn on our side of the creek, and Horseshoe Bend on Uncle Dutch’s side). The ducks flying down the creek in the evening would cross this field every evening. We seldom hit a duck here. They were high and flying fast, but it gave us a lot of fun shooting, and just maybe we would get one.

  As we reached the field, we had to follow the creek a short distance to reach our shooting area. We both stopped at the same time. There were riffles, many of them, in a quiet area of the creek. This had to mean a whole flock of ducks. We spread apart, crouched a little, and snuck along the creek bank. Expecting to see the sky fill with ducks, we burst into an open grassy area of the bank, guns at the ready.

  There were no ducks. A cow was floundering in the water. She seemed unable to recover her footing and was struggling to keep her head above water. I laid my shotgun and game bag down, pulled up my boots, and entered the creek to hold her head.

  “Don, run over to Lundy’s and call Dad,” I shouted to Don.

  He dropped his gear and took off like a shot. 

  The cow settled down a little with me holding her head. It was going to be 20 or maybe 30 minutes before anybody got here. I was glad I had my hip boots.

  The first to arrive was Vern Lundy and Don. They drove in Vern’s old pickup. Dad was on his way with the tractor, an old Ferguson, a small but function tractor. Next to arrive was Uncle Dutch and Grandpa. They stopped and tended the gate while Dad drove the tractor through the gate and up to the creek bank.

  Dad came into the water with me, standing on the other side of the cows head. He had a large cotton tow-rope.

  “We are going to tie this around her neck and pull her out with the tractor,” he said.

 “Won’t that break her neck?” I asked.

  “Not if we do it right, now you watch. We are going to tie a bowline with the knot placed under her chin. The rope will be tight against the back of her head,” he said as demonstrated the knot and the placement of the rope. 

  When he was done, he looked at me and said, “Savvy?”

  “Savvy!” I replied

  “Now you do it,” he said as he undid his knot and handed me the rope.

  With little problem, I wrapped the rope and around her neck, pulled it tight against the back of her head and ears, and tied a bowline that fit under her chin.

  “Good,” Dad said, “Now, hold her head until I start pulling her, then you move out of the way, so you are not in the bite of the rope in case it breaks or something.”

  With the rope secured to the tractor, Dad started pulling the cow, I moved away, and the tractor pulled the cow up the grassy bank and up to a level spot in the field. The men were quick to untie her and help position her half sitting up. I waded to shore, still thankful that I was dry. 

  “The vet is on his way, he should be here before too long,” Grandpa said.

  “I have to get heading for home, or it will be dark by the time I get there,” Don said as he picked up his shotgun and ducks.

  I watched as Don started across the Cowhorn, headed for Felcher Lane, that would lead him to his house. We both knew that we hunted and fished on hallowed ground. Less than 20 years before, this same ground was covered by Phil Bartlett, who was lost when he crashed his Navy fighter plane into a mountain on a night mission in the Pacific. Stan Felsher also covered this same ground, he died in the Batan Death March. Bayoneted by a Japanese soldier while on a detail to gather firewood. Bob Lundy was decorated for his service on a flight crew in the Pacific, and my Uncle Ernie was a bomber pilot. I had several cousins who fought in Korea, a couple of them in the thick of things. 

  What we did not know was that Don had but 7 years left to live. He would be killed by a 50 caliber round in a friendly fire misadventure in Vietnam. I received that news in a letter from Mom while I was stationed in Korea. This was, indeed, hallowed ground. A tremendous sacrifice of young men from such a small area of close-knit farm families.

  Dr. Haug, the veterinarian, arrived shortly. He hurried through a quick exam and started an IV, I guessed he probably had dinner waiting. When Dad asked him what he thought about the cow being in the creek, he was pretty brief. “The creek just got in her way as she was going down, this cow has milk fever,” he said.

  Dr. Haug finished the second bottle and put his stuff away. Slapping the cow on her back, she was quick to right herself and get to her feet. Everybody was relieved.

  “It probably would be a good idea to put her in the barn tonight, that will help her warm-up. It is unlikely that she will go down again, but if she does, there won’t be any duck hunters to find her tonight,” Dr. Haug said, glancing at me with a smile.

  Dad and Uncle Dutch started the cow toward the barn, I knew I would be expected to finish the job. I picked up my shotgun and game bag, and as I passed Dr. Haug, I asked, “Which do you want, the mallard drake or the ruffed grouse.”

  He was quick to take the grouse, smiled, and said, “Thanks,” as he got into his truck and headed to the gate. I hurried to catch up to the cow.

Epilogue:

Stan Felsher:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56788026/stanley-r_-felsher/photo

Phil Bartlett:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/115949598/phillip-f-bartlett

Don Miller:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/103386505/donald-gene-miller

http://thewall-usa.com/info.asp?recid=35282

The Needle in the Brier Patch, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

It was hard to see in the night with this heavy rain. I was glad that I had put my rain pants and boots on when I left the house.  I pulled on my raincoat as I stepped out of the truck.  I was wet before I got the jacket on, the rain was drenching. I peered at a blank wall of small fir trees and brush. Ayers McElfresh had said to come to this corner of his place when he called this morning. 

Finally, I could see two shadowy figures move out from under a fir tree.  They were hunched, in heavy rain gear and wide brim hats.  Sort of looked like a scene out of a Jesse James movie.  

The phone had shocked me awake from a sound sleep, the clock said 3:00 AM. It was Ayers on the phone. Ayers McElfresh was an old logger with a small farm on Scott Mountain. He had lost an eye in the woods, and I always had trouble making eye contact with his good eye rather than his glass eye.

“Doc, I have a cow down up on the hill, she is in bad shape.  Glenn Hill and I have been looking for her all night.”  I hung up the phone and pulled myself out of bed and quickly dressed. The truck was cold at first but started to warm as I headed down the hill to the highway through Sweet Home.

The rain seemed heavier as I turned up Scott Mountain Road.  Ayers had reminded me not to come to the house. “They would meet me at the upper corner of his place.  The cow was close to that corner.”  I slowed the truck as I turned the corner, straining through the night and heavy rain to get a glimpse of Ayers.  There they were, a couple of shadowy figures moving out from under a large tree. Dressed in rain gear and both wearing wide brim hats, they looked like something out of a Jesse James movie.

I waved as I stepped around the back of the truck.  Ayers and Glenn Hill, a neighbor, both waved back.  “Bring your stuff, and we will spread the wire so you can get through the fence.”

Spreading the fence wire for me was quite an honor. My grandfather would have tanned our hides if he had seen any of us kids stretching the fence wire when we were growing up.

“This is that half Holstein cow.  I raised her from a calf.  She is about 5 or 6 years old.  Calved yesterday, we have been looking for her all night.  She rolled down the hill into a big old patch of Himalayan berry vines.  One hell of a fix, she is flat out Doc.”

I grabbed the bucket filled with supplies and headed across the ditch full of runoff and ducked through the barbed wire that Ayers and Glenn were holding apart for me.  I peered into the tunnel in the brier patch.  Ayers shined his flashlight down into the tunnel, maybe 30 feet down the hill, you could see the cow.  She was lucky her head was uphill, probably why she was still alive.

“How the hell did you find her?” I asked.

“Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy.”  “We looked all night in this damn rain, almost gave up but finally worked our way up to this corner.  Glenn is the one who noticed this hole in the brush.  I was surprised to see her down there.” 

With a deep breath, I squatted down, and sort of duck walked down the tunnel of briers to the cow.   Her head was up, allowing the rumen gas to escape.  If it were downhill, she would be dead already.  

    The rain clothes provided protection from more than constant rain.  There was minimal room, and every stray movement was met with a tangle of berry vines.  My exam was very cursory.  I had already made my diagnosis of milk fever, I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to miss something obvious.  

    The temperature was low, 98°,  her udder normal, no vaginal discharge, rectal exam shows firm dry stool.  All this was consistent with the diagnosis.  Response to treatment will be the last confirmation.

    I grasped the nostrils with the nose tongs and pulled her head back, tying the tongs to the hock with a quick release knot.  I opened a bottle of Cal Dextro2 and secured the IV set to the top.  Everything was sterile, but that was sort of joke at this point.  The rain was still heavy, but the vines caught the downpour and converted it to large heavy drops.  Mud and rain, couldn’t keep things clean.  

    I took the needle out of the autoclaved pouch and leaned against her neck to further stabilize her.  Holding the jugular vein with my left hand, needle in my right hand, held by thumb and forefinger.  I struck the jugular with the heel of my right hand twice in a rapid motion and then turned my hand and seated the needle into the vein on the third stroke.  Releasing my grip on the needle as it passed through the skin kept it from piercing through the vein.  Then I quickly threaded it down the vein.  I learned this technique when I worked in the feedlots while in school.

    Hooking the IV set to the needle, I started the infusion at a rapid rate for the first bottle.  Giving it too fast could cause a cardiac arrest (dead cow).  Seldom happened to a cow this far advanced, her blood calcium could be below 4.0. 

    I leaned back and rested a little, looked at Ayers.  He was concerned, hadn’t said a word, just held the flashlight and watched.

    “Milk fever!” I said.  “Not an uncommon condition in older dairy cows.  She would have been dead in the morning, good thing you found her.”

    “Is she going be okay?”

    “I think you will be surprised.  Might take a couple of bottles here and a little time but there is a good chance she will walk out of here.”

    When the first bottle was done, she was a little more alert but not struggling against the restraint.  I started the second bottle a little slower.  I couldn’t decide what was worse, the torrential downpour or the constant large drops.  

    By the time the second bottle was done, she was struggling against the nose tongs.  I pulled the needle out and put everything back into the bucket.  I moved around to her side and pulled the free end of the rope, this released her nose.  Her head swung around and almost knocked me down.  I was able to pull the nose tongs out of her nose.  She kicked and righted herself to her sternum.  Then in one motion, sprung to her feet and raced up the hill and out the tunnel.  Glenn who was watching from the entrance had to jump out of her way.  Ayers went flying one direction, and I went the other.  The bucket and its contents were scattered.

When I got off my back, Ayers was still unhooking himself from the briers. 

    “Damn glad I was dressed for the rain.”  He said as he gathered the light and started to give me a hand.

    I grabbed the bucket, a little bent now, and started putting things back into it.  Everything was there, except the needle.  Before me was a mire of mud, cow tracks, and footprints.  I swept my hands across the wet ground.     

    “What are you looking for? 

    “I lost the needle.  Should be here somewhere.”

    Ayers helped me look for a minute or so then looked at me with his one good eye and asked, “Is it valuable?” His eyebrow over his good eye raised up a little for emphasis.

    “No, not valuable, just not the kind of thing you don’t want to leave behind.”

    “Look Doc, it’s 3:00 in the damn morning, raining like hell.  Here we are in the middle of large brier patch at the far corner of my place.  There isn’t going to be anybody in here for the next 100 years.  Just leave it.”

    Made sense to me, besides I had a full day ahead of me.  So I left the needle.  We crawled up the tunnel and into the drenching rain.  It felt good to stand up straight again.

    Glenn was still standing there, looking somewhat like a drowned rat.  “That was some show.  What did you give her Doc?  I might need some of that stuff.” 

    I crawled back through the fence and stuffed things into the truck.  I will have a chore cleaning things up in the morning.  I peeled my raincoat off, just about as wet inside as outside.  

    I pulled myself into the truck and shut the door.  Dry at last.  Will be a short night tonight, I thought as I started up the hill looking for a spot to turn around.

The sun was hot, dust stuck to the back of your throat.  It was one of those August days in the Willamette. Valley that made one wish Fall would come early.  I leaned over the low gate to get a better look at the horn on the old ram, trying not to disrupt his interest in the alfalfa in the feed rack.  Every movement stirred up more dust.

    Flies were gathered around an ugly spot on the side of his head where the tip of his horn was buried into the skin.  A full curl plus some, this old ram would be a trophy in the wild. 

    Ayers had called worried about his ram.  Arthritic enough that he probably had problems getting around to service the ewes. It was late in the day before we had been able to work him in.  The good part was I could go home after this, the sad part was it was the hottest time of the day.

      Ayers had been a little embarrassed about having me look at the old guy. 

“He probably ain’t worth the cost of the call, poor old guy probably should just put him out of his misery,”  Ayers had said when called.

    Ayers was an old logger who ran a few sheep and cows on a forty-acre ranch out in Liberty.  He had lost one eye when a broken cable had recoiled and struck him on the right side of his head.  Probably lucky that it didn’t take his head off.  Ayers was a big raw bone Scotsman, well over 6 feet with broad shoulder and a sturdy frame.  His calloused hands and course complexion told of many years of hard work and exposure to the elements.  He was tough as nails but had a soft heart when it came to his animals.  

    “Sure enough, the tip of that horn is buried in the skin.  We probably don’t want to take the whole horn off, that would be pretty hard on a ram this old.  I should be able just to trim the end and solve the problem for a couple of years”.

    “Couple of years?  This guy will be lucky to survive the winter.”

    We put a halter on the ram with a little struggle and snubbed his chin to the upper corner of the stall.  I retrieved a short piece of OB wire from my bag and threaded it around the tip of the horn.  Then I clamped a handle on each end.  Positioned the wire saw about one inch from the skin.  Leaning back to apply my weight to the wire I started long slow strokes to get the wire embedded.  At that point, I quickened the pace.  Smoke rose from the horn.  Makes the smell on the old dentist drill seems like nothing.  Only took a few seconds and the tip of the horn flew over my left shoulder as I fought to regain my balance.  Checking the horn where the tip had been, and there was no blood.  A good thing about the wire saw, the heat generated usually cauterized any vessels.  

I used a prep blade to shave the wool away from the wound.  A few maggots had already hatched and were scurrying to avoid the Betadine.  The horn had left hole almost to the bone.  It would do well after I cleaned the wound and applied Betadine ointment and Screw worm spray.  Long-acting Penicillin injection completed the treatment.  I released his head, removed the halter and opened the gate.  The ram looked at us like we were crazy, he returned to the alfalfa in the feed rack.

“This must be your last call? ”  Ayers asked, knowing full well that I wouldn’t have anything scheduled after 5:30 on a Friday afternoon.  He had asked to have a drink with him on each visit for the last 6 months.  I had always had the excuse of having more to do.  

“Yes, this is my last call today.”

“I have a new bottle of Pinch, best scotch that I know.  Come on up the house and have a drink.  You can wash up there.”

“Sure, I’ll put things away and pull the truck up there.”

Ayers was holding the door for me when I got there.  

“New bar of soap right there at the sink, a clean towel is hanging on the hook.”

After washing Ayers lead me to the dining room table.  His wife was sitting at the kitchen table and did not respond to us.  I knew that she was suffering from Alzheimer’s.  Her care had really confined Ayers in recent months.  Ayers grabbed a couple of large drinking glasses as we entered the dining room.  New bottle of Pinch was on the table.  I think he had planned this visit.  

“Just a moment, I have a new bottle of Soda, don’t want to ruin good scotch with an old bottle of Soda.”  

Ayers returned from the kitchen with ice and a new bottle of Schweppes Club Soda.  He added a few ice cubes to each glass.  Opened the Pinch and poured first 2 fingers then 3 into each glass.  Filled the glasses with Soda and sat down with a noticeable sigh.  

“Love this stuff, about the only thing I have anymore.  She doesn’t remember anything now,” nodding his head toward his wife, “makes things pretty tough.”

I wasn’t quite ready for a counseling session and never was very good at small talk.  Taking a sip of the drink, I was a little surprised that it was pretty good.  I hadn’t drunk scotch since early in my army days at Fort Devens.  This was maybe going to be easier than I thought.

“Must be difficult, do you have anybody to help?”

“Lady comes in the mornings, helps to get her up and through the bathroom and shower.  Fixes breakfast and cleans the house a little.  When she leaves she just sits there in the kitchen until bedtime.”

We continued to talk, mostly about Ayers’ early days in the woods before he lost his eye, then about the developing cataract in his only remaining eye.  Cataract surgery was advanced enough that most people when through it without a thought or worry.  It would be different if you only had one eye.  That low complication rate doesn’t mean much if you are the one with the complication.

     “Do you remember that night that you lost that needle up in that brier patch 4 or 5 years ago??”

“Do I remember?  That was quite a night, pretty hard to forget.”

    “Well, a couple of months ago I decided to clear some brush up in that corner.  Don’t know why sure don’t need any more land.  I can’t do as much as I used to do.  I was working along, and damned if I didn’t step right on that needle!  It went through the sole of my boot, through my foot and poked out the top of my boot.  Damn that hurt!  I sat down and pulled it out, that hurt like hell too.”

    “I was a real mess for a while.  Limped around for better than a week.  I was going to go to the doctor and get a tetanus shot but started to feel better, so I forgot about that.   Must have been okay, I’m still alive.  Maybe because that was a sterile needle?’

    “I don’t know, Ayers, that needle couldn’t have been too sterile, laying in the mud and dirt for the last few years.”

    “Well, no matter now.  I was the one who wanted you to leave it so I could get back to bed.”

    Not much else to say, they don’t make them like Ayers anymore.

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