Dutch Lullaby

 I heard a song quite some years ago, performed by Carly Simon and her sister Lucy. "Wynken, Blynken and Nod" is a simple, catchy ditty harkening back to a more innocent time where little people could sail off to the land of dreams in a wooden shoe.

On Tuesday night the Good Rancher was checking out cow-calf pairs on Kijiji (because when caring for cattle sunup to sundown is not enough, one can always browse the cattle for sale on Kijiji, the updated version of the Eatons and Sears wish books...). He came across this listing; his exclamation drew me over:

Oh my. It couldn't hurt, could it, just to find out why they were selling? 

"We are a dairy farm and it doesn't fit in our operation. The calves are walking every where and are trying to suck our dry cows..." 

Those poor babies. 

We looked at each other. 

A few more messages were exchanged. Then Wednesday morning: "See if we can pick them up this afternoon," the GR said.

 "We are away today, but are home tomorrow" 

Thursday morning, as he was about to leave for barn chores in the newly-crowned Palace, the GR glanced back at me and said, "See if they are still available and if we could get there after 1 pm."

As we drove down the road we spotted the snow caps of the Rockies on the horizon. It was a beautiful, clear day. "What should we call them?" I mused. "Wynken, Blynken and Nod keeps coming to my head." I played him the Doobie Brothers version and the Simon Sisters version, but he couldn't really make out the words or the tune with all the air rushing around us from the open windows... 

We arrived at the dairy farm shortly after 2 pm, and Elize and Theo were there in the yard to meet us. Right away they took us to see their daughters' 4H steers, which had been shown the previous day." This is what the calves will grow up to look like!"

Then they showed us their heifers, who were clearly loved because they came up to us for head scratches and pats. "Our girls spend a lot of time with them," Theo commented wryly. 

After that we got to see the baby pail bunters, who will be used for 4H next year; from there it was on to the milking barns. 

This family farm doesn't use the high-tech, hands-off approach. Theo and his hired hands milk for two hours starting at 5 a.m., and again at 4 p.m. Their cows are healthy and well treated. 

We came across one noble red cow in her own large pen. 

"Remember the one red heifer you saw in the middle of all the blues?" asked Elize. "She is our one and only replacement heifer for this old red cow of ours... She has been a fantastic cow, and will get to live out her days here. She's our friend."

We went one barn over and were greeted by a frisky little "blue" calf. I cannot be sure why, but some black and white or grey speckledy cattle are called blue. They are invariably beautiful. 

"Here's the mum. She's a little distressed this afternoon. She knows something's up," commented Theo, patting her gently. "And now, here are the triplets!" 

The first one we had met came trotting back into his mother's huge pen to see what was going on. The littlest one lay close to her mummy. The third had snuck into the neighbour's pen and was snoozing.

"The two bigger ones are the bull calves and the little one is the girl, most likely a freemartin as I mentioned to you while we were discussing them." He got his cow over to the side of the pen and knelt in front of her to take off her collar and to say goodbye. "She's one of our best cows..." His voice trailed off. 

I was heartbroken for this man. I turned to Elize, standing next to me. "Why doesn't he just sell the calves and keep the cow?" 

She looked back at me, pain in her face too, and slowly she explained. 

"This is the second set of triplets we have had in the whole time we have had our operation. They are very special to us. They are all healthy. She loves all three of them and they all love each other. How could we possibly separate them? If we kept them here, the boys would end up in a feed lot. The girl would be no good to us. The cow would have no one. We want them to be together for as long as possible."

Immediately my mind went to that Bible story of old, of wise King Solomon who had to adjudicate in the case of the two mothers, one of whose baby had died. You know the story. The two devastated women stood in front of him, each claiming that the live baby was hers. 

"Give me my sword," said Solomon. "We will cut this live baby in half and each of you will get half."

One immediately agreed to the pronouncement as being fair and equitable. The other, sobbing, asked the king to reconsider and please give the baby to her rival. 

The king had his answer. 

Theo and Elize, in their own way, were doing the same thing as that mother: for love of their cow and her happiness, they were willing to give her up.

My eyes filled with tears and Elize was blinking hard.

Theo went to the office and brought back a piece of paper, carefully protected in a clear plastic sleeve. "Here are her papers," he said. "You had better have them now."

And suddenly we were the owners of a purebred Holstein cow and her three Belgian blue babies! Wynken and Blynken would be the boys' names and Nod the sweet little girl's. 

We loaded them into the GR's stock trailer, mum in the first compartment and three protesting babies into the middle compartment. One last pause to hand Elize a box of doughnuts we had picked up for them from Bloke's Bakery in Stettler - after all, dairy farmers should have the joy of tasting a cream john, shouldn't they?! - and we were on the road home.

As the GR drove, I started talking about a name for the mum. My connection to Holland, home of the dairy farmers, is that my Aunt Mabel married Henk and cares for him and their two Canadian-Dutch children and grandchildren with every fibre of her being.

"I think her name is Mabel," I suggested to the GR.

"Oh man," he replied with a grin. Henk is one of his favourite people anywhere.

"I wish that Wynken, Blynken and Nod could be connected to Holland in some way too. Maybe I should find better names," I fretted. I googled the names to discover their origin and picked Wikipedia as my source for the answer:

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod is a popular poem for children written by American writer and poet Eugene Field and published on March 9, 1889. The original title was "Dutch Lullaby". The poem is a fantasy bed-time story about three children sailing and fishing among the stars from a boat which is a wooden shoe. The names suggest a sleepy child's blinking eyes and nodding head. The spelling of the names, and the "wooden shoe," suggest Dutch language and names, as hinted in the original title

"I guess your first instincts for their names were right!" the GR laughed. 

And look at the name of the person who created a statue in their honour! " I shrieked.

(Wynken, Blynken and Nod by Mabel Landrum Torrey, 1918, formerly a fountain in Washington Park, Denver)

He crinkled his eyes at me. "I guess she's Mabel then!"

When we got home we ran the babies out, and Mabel followed, a bit shell-shocked by the ride, no doubt. The GR got W,B&N into the Palace with their new royal playmates, and led Mabel over to where there was hay and fresh water.

Then it was supper time at the Palace. We wondered how our four newest residents would do. The GR got all the babies sorted into their normal dining rooms, and put the three newbies into a vacant one. First he sent up good old Horns, mother of Princess Anne and adoptive mother of Phil. I closed the gate behind her.

In the pen next to them stood the three babies, unsure of themselves and their new surroundings.

"Here comes Mabel!" And up walked this beautiful, stately mother, straight into the middle of her little tribe.

She indulged herself with just one mouthful of dairy ration; and when her babies had still not moved, gave them a sharp, one-word command. 

They hustled then! 

The three of them crowded to one side, but with a little hip checking she got Nod out of the way of her big brothers. 

Two particularly sweet moments occurred: the first was a brief exchange between Horns and Mabel, a sort of "You're not alone in this" look.

 The second was when Nod went over to her mummy's head after she had finished eating.

Mabel tucked her girl under her chin and they stood there, quietly, while the boys scampered around them. 

Later that night, before we went to bed, we went to check on the Palace. All the residents were getting along well together. Mabel, Horns and Goldie were nearby, lowing softly at their babies. W,B&N were together.

This morning, look who was waiting to greet Mabel for breakfast! 

In a few days, when everyone is homed in and fully comfortable, mothers and babies will all be taken out to enjoy fresh, green grass. 

And - just like Elize and Theo hoped - Mabel, along with her triplets Wynken, Blynken and Nod, will be together for as long as they possibly can. 

Welcome to your new home!