Preface

I wrote this story in May of 2020 with a lump in throat. I have tried to expand on it several times since then but find the task too painful.

It is a good story for the special 250th 4th of July to remind us that Freedom is never Free.

I hope people will take a few minutes during their celebrations to honor the many thousands of yound men and women who have given their lives over the centuries so we can enjoy the benefits of this great country.

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 Felcher 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

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I hated this hole. I was trying to visualize the perfect shot as I placed my ball on the tee. Standing back behind the ball, I took a deep breath. Even with my slice, I could play this hole. I never understood why it bothered me so.

The 8th hole at Pineway Golf Course was straight away and a little downhill, especially on the second shot. The green was elevated and small, but I could play this hole. I just needed a good tee shot. I needed to block those trees out of my mind.

I addressed the ball, checked my alignment, and started my backswing. Then I swung as hard as I could. The ball flew off the tee, cleared the close trees, and faded to the right around the grove of oaks. I was in great shape, just right of the fairway, but only a six iron to the green.

My Thursday afternoon golf game was a closely guarded escape for me. The phone never rang on the golf course. I was never a great player, but I could beat anyone on any one hole. I loved this game, I just wished I could play well enough to beat my Father someday.

I lined up my second shot and set my six iron on the ground behind the ball. I took a peek at my target, and I swung hard. Typically, a large divot flew in the air. The ball was high in the air when I locked onto it visually. It was right on target, high in the air, it should land softly on the green. 

I followed the ball carefully, it landed on the green, left of center, one small bounce and rolled toward the pin on the left-back of the green. I came to rest two feet short of the pin. 

My heart raced, I slammed the six iron back into my bag and started toward the green. Jim was just making his second shot from the middle of the fairway. Partners in a men’s club game, he would be happy that I had a short birdie putt. Jim’s ball came up just short of the green. Hopefully, he could get up and down for par, making my birdie putt a lot less stressful.

I was just setting my golf bag down on the edge of the green when I saw the golf cart speeding down the 9th fairway, heading right for us. Moments later, Woodberry pulls up beside in the cart.

“You have an emergency, Doc,” Woodberry said. “Bill called and said he has a cow who cut her tail off on a sickle mower. He thinks she is bleeding to death.”

“The tail is a long way from the heart,” I said. “All bleeding stops, eventually.”

“Get in, I told the guy I would send you as soon as I could,” Woodberry said, apparently not impressed with my words of wisdom.

“Woodberry, do you how long it has been since I have had a 2-foot putt of a birdie on this hole?” I said.

“Get in, Jim will give you the putt, we have to go,” Woodberry said.

“You can keep my ball, Jim,” I said as I loaded my bag on the cart.

At least Bill’s place was not far and on the way home. I threw my golf bag into the back seat in the truck and jumped in, not bothering to change my golf shoes. That would give Bill the impression that I had hurried.

I could see both Bill and his wife out at the chute. They had the cow in the chute already. I didn’t see any blood squirting, but the cow’s hind legs were covered in blood, and Bill’s teeshirt and pants were also soaked.

“I am glad they could get you,” Bill said as I got out of the truck. “Sorry I had to ruin your game, but I was running these cows out of the barn, and I had this damn tractor parked here with the sickle bar up. This gal must have switched her tail at the wrong time, and that sickle bar just sliced it off in an instant.”

I walked over and looked at what was left of the tail. It was a clean cut, about a foot and a half from the base of the tail. 

“I didn’t know how long you were going to be,” Bill said. “I figured I better get the bleeding under control, that hose clamp a little way up from the cut end did the trick. I just screwed it down until the bleeding stopped.”

“I see, that was pretty good thinking,” I said. “I will close up this wound, and we will be able to remove the clamp.”

I shaved the hair for about 6 inches above the severed end of the tail. Then I gave her an epidural injection of Lidocaine for anesthesia. After scrubbing the wound, I made a bivalve incision of the end of the tail, so I would have two flaps to suture over the cut end. Then I removed enough bone so I could get the skin to close over the bone with no tension.

“I’m going to have you take that clamp off now,” I said. “I will need some bleeding to make sure I can get all the vessels ligated.”

Bill removed the clamp with the screwdriver that was still in his pocket. The blood started squirting. I was able to get a hemostat on the main arteries, and I ligated those, check again, there was just minor bleeding evident now. Suturing the end of the tail with number 2 Dexon, made for a secure closure, and I would not have to come back to take the sutures out. I sprayed her well for flies, and we turned her out. 

“That should heal with no problems,” I said. “But keep an eye on it and let me know if I need to recheck her. The stitches will dissolve, so we don’t have to take those out.”

“I am sure glad you could get here so quick,” Bill said. “And, I apologize again for ruining your game.”

“The worst thing about that is I left a 2-foot putt for a birdie on the 8th hole,” I said. “I guess I will just have to add that onto your bill.”

“Well, damn! Now I am sorry, I hear a lot of guys complaining about that hole,” Bill said. “I never play the game myself.”

Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I came through the back door of the clinic in Enumclaw, I liked to get into the clinic early. Jack was just cleaning up from an early morning call.

“You are here a little early,” Jack said as I squeezed past him at the utility tub.

“I have been coming a little early to organize the morning a little different,” I replied.

“A little different,” Jack said, “Things have run the same way around here for the last 30 years. I am not sure we need things to be a little different.”

“We have the surgery patients coming in during the late morning, and we don’t get to them until the afternoon after all the farm calls are done,” I said. “If we brought them in early in the morning, we could get the surgeries done before noon on most days. That way we could send them home in the evening. That would save a lot of cage cleaning for the girls in the morning. It would also be better than having them here overnight, unattended, following surgery.”

“Well, you might have something there,” Jack said. “I will have to give it some thought.”

“I have Mrs. Nielsen coming in this morning with a couple of cat spays,” I said. “If there are no urgent farm calls, I thought I would do the surgeries first thing this morning and send them home at 4:00 this afternoon.”

“Well, hopefully, I took care of our emergency for the day,” Jack said. “I had a calf to deliver at about 5:00 this morning. It was an easy pull. Tiny calf, one of those that you have to hold in there for a few minutes, so the farmer thinks he gets his monies worth. Then I hooked an OB strap on the legs and pulled it with one hand.”

“That sounds easy,” I said.

“But there is more to the lesson,” Jack said, anxious for me to listen. “One thing you want to do when you pull a calf is to go back in and check for another calf. Sure enough, I did that this morning, and there was another calf. It was backward, hind feet sticking into the birth canal, it was as small as the first one. Came out without any problems.”

“That is something that they always stressed in school,” I said.

“You don’t see twins very often, and it is easy to get used to thinking that there is no reason to check,” Jack said. “I seem to forget to check some of the time, just a good idea to do it every time.”

“Thanks for the update,” I said. “I will be sure to make it a habit. I have to hurry upfront so I can speak with Mrs. Nielsen when she drops off her two cats this morning.”

The girls had just completed getting Mrs. Nielsen’s cats into kennels when I got to the front desk.

“I am glad I caught you before you got out the door,” I said.

Smiling, Mrs. Nielsen said, “I am glad too, Ole wanted me to make sure I met you today. He is impressed with you, young man.”

“I just wanted to make sure that you were going to pick up these cats this afternoon,” I said, ignoring her husband’s compliment.

“That is different,” She said. “Always in the past, they were kept overnight. But Ole said, “Anything Dr. Larsen says is fine with us,”

“We are just changing the schedule a little, I will do the surgeries this morning, and they will be ready to go home anytime after 4:00. They will do better at home than down here overnight with nobody watching them.”

“And we close at 5:30,” Mary said, speaking over my shoulder.

“I will be here at 4:00,” Mrs. Nielsen says as she starts out the door.

The girls were used to a slow morning at the office. All three of us veterinarians would depart and do farm calls, usually not getting back into the office until the afternoon. Today I had two cat surgeries to do before starting on my farm calls.

“Let’s get the exams done on these cats and get set up for surgery,” I said. “I have been assuming that they were both females, but we better check.”

The first cat on the exam table was probably approaching a year old, and I didn’t have to look for testicles to know he was a young tomcat. His neck and cheeks were already growing thick, probably the life around the barn required these guys mature early if they are going to survive.

“This morning schedule just got a whole lot easier,” I said. 

We finished an exam, did his vaccines, and gave him a dose of atropine to start getting him ready for anesthesia.

The second cat must have been a brother as they looked like two peas out of the same pod.

“I am sure she was talking about spaying these cats,” Mary said.

“People are often confused about the term, spay,” I said. “I can’t say that I know where the term came from. It makes no sense to me.”

With the first cat on the surgery table, I gave him a dose of Ketamine by IV injection. I gave 0.4 cc IV. This was a dose that would provide excellent anesthesia and immobilization for about 20 minutes and would allow a smooth recovery within 30 or 40 minutes. Some residual pain control lasted for several hours with Ketamine. 

With the cat under anesthesia and on his right side, I plucked the hair from his scrotum. Mary prepped the scrotum as I pulled on a pair of surgical gloves. Jack had graduated in the 1940s. His method of castration in the cat was to incise the scrotum over each testicle, grasp the end of a testicle with a forceps and apply slow, steady traction, pulling the testicle out until the cords stretched and broke off. 

I had been told of this procedure in school and instructed to never use it as it was outdated. There were few complications with this old procedure, but time marches on. I used one of several methods. All involved incisions over each testicle. 

I would pull the testicle out until I could feel the cremaster muscle tear, clamp the cord with a hemostat, and place a ligature on the cord before removing the testicle. This procedure consumed a package of suture material and took a little more time. 

The other procedure and the one I used most often was to pull the testicle out of the scrotum, incise the tunic and separate the tunic from the testicle, then open the tunic with scissors down the length of the exposed cord. Then I would tie the testicular vessels and the tunic in several throws of square knots before removing the testicle and residual tunic.

With any procedure, it was over in minutes. We would clean the surgery area and return the cat to the kennel to recover. With Ketamine anesthesia, the blink reflex is absent until the patient is fully recovered. The surface of the cornea must be protected with the application of an ointment.

This morning, I had the two cat neuters completed, and the record work completed by a little after 8:30. I would be able to get through my farm calls almost on their regular schedule.

Then the phone rang. Both Jack and Don had already left on their calls. Mary answered the phone.

“No, Jack has already left the office. Dr. Larsen is still here, would you like to talk with him?”

Mary hands me the phone. “This is Harold, you know him, I think. He lives out on that little knoll. This is about the twins that Jack delivered this morning.”

I take the phone from Mary, “Hello, Harold,” I say. “What do you have going on?”

“Jack was here about 5:00 this morning,” Harold says. “He delivered a set of twins. Those two are doing well, but the old cow doesn’t seem right to me. She is uncomfortable, not really straining, but sort of doing little pushes.”

Harold was one of our younger dairy clients. He had a herd of 50 or 60 cows. He probably wasn’t the sharpest tack in the box, but he was generally pretty observant, and if he didn’t think things were quite right, it probably meant that I should check the cow.

“Harold, it sounds like I should run out and check the cow,” I said. “If you have her in where we can get to her, I can come right now.”

“I still have her in the calving pen,” Harold said. “I will go get a halter on her and have her tied up and waiting for you.”

Harold’s place was only a mile down the road. I checked to make sure I had water in the truck, pulled on a pair of coveralls and boots, and started down the road.

Harold’s place was laid out a little different for the area. His house, barn, and all the outbuildings were perched on top of a knoll. All his pastures were on the level valley floor, leaving quite a little hill for the cows to climb to the milking parlor and barn twice a day.

I filled a bucket of warm water from the truck, grabbed a bottle of scrub and one of lube and headed for the barn with a couple of OB sleeves in my back pocket.

Harold was waiting in the calving pen with the cow tied in the corner. The twin calves were running around, nursing on mom and then on Harold’s knees.

“They look like they are doing okay,” I said to Harold as I squeezed through the gate, blocking the way, so the calves didn’t escape.

“They are doing great, but I am not sure about this old gal,” Harold said as he rubbed the cow on her back.

She was standing okay, but her tail was raised. That would suggest some continuing contractions. With the calves out of there, that shouldn’t be happening. The calves were small enough, there should not have been any injury to the birth canal. 

“Will, let me get her cleaned up, and do a quick check on her,” I said as I tied a piece of twine to the switch on her tail. I tied the other end of the twine in a loop around her neck, pulling her tail along her side and out of the way.

“You must feel pretty good, getting two heifers out of such a good milker,” I said to Harold as I was scrubbing the vulva on the cow.

“Yes, it is nice. I don’t think I have had twins before,” Harold said. “In fact, I don’t think I have seen twins before.”

“They happen, but not very often,” I said as I pulled on an OB sleeve and applied a handful of lube.

I ran my left arm into the vagina. Everything was normal in the vagina. The cervix was still open, and there were still membranes present. Retained fetal membranes were not uncommon in difficult deliveries and in multiple births. 

I extended my reach into the uterus. There was the problem. All of a sudden, I was holding the tail of another calf. Reaching a little further, this third calf was in full breech presentation. It was maybe a little bigger than the other two but still small. I inserted a finger into the rectum, it tightened. The calf was still alive. 

Then came the bad news. There was no vulva, and reaching a little further, there were the testicles. Harold’s twin heifers suddenly became triplets with a bull calf. This meant the heifers were likely freemartins.

Freemartins are female cattle born twins to a male calf. In cattle, and occasionally, sheep, goats, pigs, deer, and camels, there is a fusion of fetal membranes, and the male calf shares some cells with the female. Those cells produce enough male hormones that the development of the female reproductive structures are affected, and the female calf is sterile. The male calf is only slightly affected, but there is some reduction in his fertility.

“There is good news and bad news Harold,” I said. “The good news is there is another calf in there, and he is alive. Getting him out will solve the immediate problem. He is in a full breech position, but I should be able to correct that with no problem.”

“And the bad news?” Harold asked.

“The bad news is the calf is a male,” I said. “That means that there is over a 90% chance that these little heifer calves are freemartins.”

“What is a freemartin?” Harold asked, “I have never heard that term before.”

“Heifer calves born a twin (or in this case a triplet) to a bull calf are affected by the male hormones, and their reproductive tract doesn’t develop correctly,” I explained.

“I guess the thing to do is just to sell them,” Harold said. “The market of heifer calves is pretty good.”

“We see that done, for sure,” I said, “but that is not very ethical. Then somebody spends a lot of time and money and ends up with a heifer who will not get pregnant. That is pretty unfair to the buyer.”

“Now you make me feel like I am cheating somebody,” Harold said.

“Just be honest,” I said. “Tell the buyer what the problem is, so they know what they are getting. Just don’t do anything that your mother would not approve of, that is the best test.”

“Now, let me get this calf out of her.”

I reached deeper into the uterus and could only touch the hock of the calf as the hind legs were both extended forward along the body on the calf. I could use a crutch now, a device to push the rump up and forward and making it easier to reach the hocks. We didn’t have that available in this practice.

I turned my arm so I could elevate the rump with my elbow. That allowed just enough elevation to allow me to grab a hock and pull the right hind leg back to the rear of the calf. Then I grabbed the cannon bone, midway between the hock and the hoof. By pushing the cannon bone up, then pushing the hock forward, I brought the foot to the brim of the pelvis where I could pop it into the birth canal.

Attaching an OB strap to this hoof, I could apply enough traction that I could reach the other leg with ease. I repeated the maneuver with the cannon bone. Once both legs were in the birth canal, I was able to pull this small calf with simple traction.

He hit the ground and I picked him up and swung him by his heels to drain a lot of fluid from his airways. Another couple of hours and we would have lost this guy.

“Will I guess having three calves for sale is almost as good as one to raise,” Harold said.

“This is probably the only set of triplets I will ever deliver or help to deliver,” I told Harold. “I will have to tell Jack to check for another after each calf.”

“Maybe you should check to make sure there is not another calf, Doc,” Harold said.

“Good point, Harold,” I said. “I am going to put some antibiotics into her uterus anyway. There has been a lot of in and out of there today. And she has a big bunch of membranes to pass. I opened a package of 5 grams of Tetracycline Powder on two sides and carried it into the uterus. I unfolded the pouch and dispersed the powder into the uterine fluids.

“You need to watch her close,” I said. “If she has not passed those membranes by tomorrow afternoon, we should recheck her.”

I cleaned up and headed back to the clinic. The afternoon discussions will be interesting today. 

Photo by Corinna Widmer from Pexels.