09/06/2025
This weekend we lost a calf.
It was a painful ending to a weekend that was supposed to be about celebrating hard work and grit.
There are no days off in raising animals. So on Labor Day Monday, instead of resting, we were out in the pasture facing loss and trying to understand what went wrong.
Jules found her first, with mama cow pacing the fence and mooing frantically behind her.
The photo you see is us showing mama that her calf is gone. Cows have a deep, primal connection to their calves, and she needed the chance to comprehend what happened.
She’s heartbroken. There’s really no other way to describe it. As humans, we can’t fully understand that bond, but when she lowered her head and let out a low, guttural moo, we felt it deep in our chests.
Farming is hard. To pretend this doesn’t happen in farming would be a lie. And even though we know loss is part of the reality, it doesn’t mean we don’t feel it.
The day we stop grieving losses like this is the day we stop farming.
