Chapter 10 The Babies.
Springtime is a very busy time on a ranch. Mending fences that didn't survive the winter storms; moving cattle from winter meadows to fields close to the ranch where they could graze and the females could calve with us close by in case of trouble. Jess and I kept very busy so we weren't around the ranch as much.
We also had three mares that we were expecting to foal; two of them, one black and one bay, we had bred intentionally almost a year back.
The third, a lineback dun, it seems, had snuck away from the herd about the same time to a rendezvous with a bachelor mustang stallion.
When we moved the horses to better pasture, we noticed she was heavily pregnant so we moved her down to the corral with the other mares-in-waiting.
Buttons was also pregnant and so was some stray cat that Mike took to feeding. A few of the chickens were also sitting on eggs getting ready to hatch. Whew! Seemed we were about to have babies everywhere! And it looked like it would be a race to see who had theirs first!
The winner was the stray cat. Her kittens were born the day before Mort and I got back from our manhunt. There were three of them: one yellow tabby and white like the mother, one calico and one gray tabby.
As soon as the kittens' eyes were open and Virginia was able to sit up in bed for a long period of time, Mike brought the kittens into her room. Virginia favored the little calico that she named Sophie. Sophie was the runt of the litter.
She would stroke the little kitten until it purred. It would eventually fall asleep in her arms. And it seemed to me that some of the sadness that weighed her down was lifted whenever Mike brought them in. Daisy wasn't much for cats in the house but she too noted that Virginia's depression lessened whenever Mike brought them in and so never said a word about it.
Several of the cows were calving. Most cows knew what to do instinctively but Jess and I wanted to be sure the calves were healthy and their mothers had no problems giving birth. Many nights we had to stay out on the range to be sure no coyotes or other predators would get the calves.
We soon had chicks and calves and kittens all over the place! Only Buttons and the mares seemed to bide their time.