Molly

We named the new calf Molly.  She's growing like a weed and already has a mind of her own.  Lily is a good momma and watches her calf carefully.  We let Lily and Molly out of the barn on a beautiful day so they could enjoy the sunshine but poor Lily hardly had time to graze.  She spent her afternoon chasing Molly all over the yard calling, in vain, for her to come back.

Molly met the goats. 

 

And explored the yard.

 

 

We even put a rope halter on her for the first time.  She acted like we were trying to kill her.  She cried out, staggered around, ran backwards and dropped to the ground near the wood pile.  Lily was quite concerned.  She ran up and sniffed all over the halter even following the lead up to my hand before deciding we were not out to hurt her calf.

 

 

Molly tried to sniff noses with the dogs but Lily stonewalled that every time. She chased off the dogs if they even thought about getting too close. Jack ran off and hid behind the grill. He's been pounded by Lily a couple of times and wanted no part of that.



 

Eventually we left the cows alone for a bit and we worked in the house. Lily took her calf and wondered off behind some trees where we could only catch glimpses of them occasionally. After a while I realized I hadn't seen them in some time. I walked down around the back of the pond and still couldn't see them.  They had not come back from that direction so I kept walking and found them alongside the pond in some brush.  I was surprised at how difficult it was to see them while they were standing in the tall grass.

 

 

The calf had crossed a small ditch that held just enough water that Lily was reluctant to cross back but they were uncomfortably close to the pond. 

 

 

I pushed my way in to where they were and shoved Molly toward the clearing.  Lily readily followed once the calf got moving.

 

I'm sure Molly slept well that night after her first day of exploring the outdoors!