This will be the first post on our Family blog that will revert back to the original purpose of the Our Maker's Acres Family Farm blog. Tonight's episode is about things that make me squeamish on our little homestead. We have a bonus at the end of the post about Benjamin and things that made us kind of squeamish today in his hospital room.
If you've followed the blog, you know that LuLu, one of our Jersey cows, recently gave birth to Nicky. Nicky is a little Jersey bull calf and is a cute little guy. The plans for Nicky are two-fold. We'll raise him for about 18 months and let him breed our cows. Then, he will be processed and put in our freezer. It is an incredible cycle. The sun grows the grass. The cows poop and fertilize the grass, making it grow. The cows eat the grass, transforming the energy of the sun and the fertility of the soil into milk. We drink the milk and the calf drinks the milk. The milk that Nicky drinks, and later grass that he eats, is transformed into protein that ends up on our plates.
Jersey bulls can be very dangerous. It is a fact that Jersey bulls kill more farmers than any other breed of cattle. That is a strange thing because Jersey cows are so docile. The bulls are a different story altogether. We want things as safe as possible out in the barnyard. It is still burned in my memory (you'll know why I said that in a minute) an event in movie history that I still think about today.
In "The Song of the South" movie from my childhood that I think is now censored, I recall little Johnny running across the pasture, calling for Uncle Remus. A bull with horns runs after little Johnny and to everyone's shock, the bull gores little Johnny with his horns. I wonder if that is where the old saying "You mess with the bull, you get the horns" comes from? We want to prevent that from ever happening in our pasture, so after every calf is born, at about 10-14 days old, we de-horn the calf. Click this link to see the tool we use on both calves and baby goats (kids).
This is the way we do it: We put the calf in the barn, lay him down and sit on him. Then we use clippers to shave the hair on his head around the horn buds, exposing them. Then we use an electric dehorning iron to burn and kill the horn bud. If the procedure is successful, the horns don't grow and your chances of ending up like poor little Johnny are greatly reduced.
The de-horning iron gets cherry-red. You put it around the horn buds while holding the calf down. When you have a copper-colored ring around the horn bud, the job is done. I always feel sorry for the calves and it makes me squeamish to do it. I'm sure it is painful, but in about 5 minutes, the calf is up and running around like nothing happened.
Well, to segue into a status report on Benjamin today, I saw something today in his hospital room that made me squeamish. If you don't have a strong stomach, this might be a post to not continue. I don't know how doctors do what they do. I just don't have the stomach or fortitude for it. Today was the day that the doctor would be removing staples from Benjamin's many incisions. Here are the staples on his legs from where they put rods in both bones in his lower legs and patched up the compound fracture. The wounds have healed nicely. His knees and right lower leg, ankle and foot are still swollen.
This is where the compound fracture was. These staples will be staying in a while longer and a fresh dressing was put on.
Dr. Jones told Benjamin it wouldn't hurt, but he grabbed a pillow and held it tight. He braced himself. The doctor told him, "Do you feel it? I've already pulled out 5 of them." He didn't feel any pain and let go of the pillow. They came out quickly and with ease. He was smiling and laughing by the end of it.
This photo makes my stomach get tight. This is the incision from the spine surgery (laminectomy), where they put rods in his back. We counted the staples. There are 45 of them. The incision is clean and healed. This was scheduled for tomorrow, but the doctor said, "Let's get it done today!"
Not that you requested it, but here is a close-up. I am a grown man of 56 years and this makes me want to cry. But you know what? He's alive. He's not brain-injured. He's not paralyzed. I can look at these scars and have gratitude to the Lord for His Goodness in saving my son. A scar can be a testimony to point to a compassionate God. That's the way we're gonna look at it.
There were 126 staples that were removed from his legs, hip and back today. There are still some staples remaining in his right lower leg. Tomorrow we have our big meeting. I'll have a report tomorrow night. Thank you for all your prayers. They mean the world to us!
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