This photo was taken in the low evening sun at the edge of the pasture, with the fall color just starting in the trees behind. Three calves are lying down together, and a couple of the cows are standing close by. The moms had been drinking water nearby.
Let me introduce them. Octo is a red bull calf. Briar is a red heifer with a little white tip on her tail. Oak is a bull calf with a white face and more white on his legs and body. They're all a couple of weeks old now, and it's fun to look back at how quickly they've changed.
For the first week or so, a calf does something that surprises a lot of people. It goes off and hides alone in the weeds. That's instinct. A newborn can't outrun a predator, so the safest plan is to stay flat, stay quiet, and let mom come back to nurse. If you walk the pasture in those first days, you can nearly step on one before you see it.
Then, somewhere along the way, that changes. Once they're a bit older and stronger, they stop hiding alone and start gathering up. They lie down in a group, then they get up and run around, then they lie down again. It looks a lot like a little daycare nursery, or a bunch of kindergartners at recess. That's what this photo shows us. These three aren't hiding in the weeds anymore. They're out in the open together, which tells us they're growing up.
We're still expecting at least one more calf this year, and we don't know when it will show up. So we'll keep watching and keep taking pictures.
If you'd like to see whether the extra calf has arrived, check back here. And if you want these updates in your inbox, you can join the Firm Foundation Farm email list. What do you think we'll find the next time we walk the pasture?