So The Cat Died....

So The Cat Died

Original photo taken by Stacey Jungel Seibel

By Karilea Rilling Jungel 

This is one of those stories where you know the cart is before the horse, just like it was one of those times, but you go ahead and do things anyway. Like when we first bought our cowherd in 1990. The pasture wasn’t set up for anything other than natural grazing. There were no catch pens, no holding corrals, just acres with a mix of long stem and short stem bluegrass and Indian grass. Plus really bad barbed wire fences strung between hedgerows. We had walked the fence, patched the holes, but it still needed some work. It was time to begin, however; we had to make our start, so we bought 38 pregnant heifers. But that was months earlier, and as you can see, I sometimes get the cart before the horse.

Our cows had calved that winter of 1990, which means the calves were actually born in January and February of 1991. By October we had planned to work on the third weekend to separate the cows and calves and went to the pasture to make sure that all was set up and ready for fall sale. The calves would be sold by the end of the month to the farmer/rancher who had consigned them.

But before the weekend hit…we had to get through the week. So, as the story goes…

I had let my longhaired cat, Samantha, out into the back yard on that Tuesday night. She immediately returned to the house, breathing hard. On examining her I saw a few flecks of red on her back, very apparent against her pure white fur. I moved the fur and she flinched. I discovered bite wounds on her back that she could not access to lick clean. I called my daughter to come help me. We took hydrogen peroxide and tried to clean the wound as best we could. We planned to take Sam to the vet the next day.

On Wednesday the vet cleaned Sam’s wound again, and gave her a shot of antibiotics. Something wasn’t settling within me, so I watched Samantha closely. By Thursday it was apparent Sam wasn’t doing well, so I told my husband we would take her in to the vet the next day, Friday. Once there, the vet said he would like to have Sam stay overnight so he could watch her, but it was apparent that she most likely wasn’t going to pull through. Her wound was abscessing, and she was losing strength. When I left her in the vet’s care, I was told to call Saturday morning, about 10:00 a.m.

That weekend we were to go out and work in the pasture. There were a lot of things that needed doing, which required the hands of my husband, daughter and me. But we really didn’t know what was yet to unfold.

The first thing we discovered Saturday morning was how cold it was. It was late October, and weather could change in a blink. It was cold, about 35 degrees, so we layered ourselves warmly. We donned long-johns, jeans, T-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets and the obligatory boots.

By 10:00 a.m., we had arrived at the Co-op to pick up cubes which are protein pellets given to cows for nutrition, and in our case, our pampered cows looked upon cubes as candy. It was one way we could pull them all together to make counting them much easier. While I was at the Co-op, I used their phone to call the vet. My cat, Sam, had died overnight. Somehow, I had known she would. I was upset that I had not been with her. Of course, this did not put me or my daughter in a good frame of mind.

We still had work to do at the pasture. Because my husband had decided that he would probably stay behind to work a bit, I drove his car, and he drove the truck. My daughter and I were very quiet on the trip out. I was trying not to cry, and she was trying not to sniffle. Both of us were not doing a very good job of being brave for the other one. We finally arrived at the pasture to help my husband count cows, calves, and to get the general work done.

When we arrived at the pasture, there are only a few cows to be seen. Normally in the morning, they were all waiting at the pasture gate. That was their routine. This meant we had to drive around the pasture to find the remaining cows. Not all of them were trained to come to the sound of the truck horn. So we three piled into the truck and drove around, keeping count, hoping that the cows wouldn’t all start running after the truck, having hopes of “candy” cubes. We needn’t have worried.

We were not finding any cows until we came to the farthest corner of the pasture where the natural pond was located. We saw the remainder of our cows...and one very large calf floating in the pond. Drowned. My daughter and I were now very distressed, and my husband began cussing, thinking about how he’s going to get the calf out.

After some discussion, we headed back to the main gate where the tractor was located. Of course, nothing was going to go right; first we had to gas up the tractor. My daughter and I then followed my husband back while he drove the tractor and I drove the truck. My daughter was in tears, for she had previously claimed all of the new calves as her “pets.” We got back to the pond, and were trying to rope a leg of the calf to pull him onto the pond’s bank. About this same time, the rancher that had consigned the calves pulled up, having followed us to the pond. He got out of his truck and made some raunchy jokes about the care and feeding of our "profit."

After many efforts, we finally got the calf out, and drug the body back to the main gate via tractor. Of course, all of the cows are in mourning, and followed us. Even though we were not moving fast, the cows were running. Cows, bulls and calves are a family. Calves are very much a part of the entire herd, and the cows needed to know where their calf was going, he was still theirs, and part of their herd. They were not ready to lose a member of the family. My daughter and I knew how they felt.

So, once we got the calf out to the front gate, my husband called the rendering plant to have the carcass picked up on Monday. After we got some ranch work done, he told us to "go home" and he'd "come in soon." I had said something to the effect, "I hope nothing else goes wrong." I remember him saying, "don't worry, nothing will."

Ah, never bet against anything on a day that Adversity has planned.

It was about a twelve-mile trip from the pasture gate to our house in town. Approximately one-half of the trip is via gravel road. In my husband's car, we got about three blocks from the main road, and experienced the joy of having a flat tire. A really flat tire on a really gravelly road. There was not a bit of space between the bottom of the car and the gravel. I got the jack out from the trunk but couldn't wedge the jack under the bumper. I looked at my daughter. She looked at me. We had dressed in layers for 35-40 degree weather. It had now warmed up to about 68 degrees. We were sweating in our boots, sweatshirts and coats. The nearest phone was about a mile away.

I had one quarter. My husband had our one car phone in his truck. My daughter and I started walking. I was not leaving her alone with the car on a gravel road in the middle of the country. I tried to concentrate on the cell phone number because it was new. “What's the number?” I had one quarter, one chance to call. Do I call him? Or 911? I think I can call 911 without a quarter, so if I can't remember the number, I can still call 911. I think. I hadn't been in a spot like this so I didn't know the protocol!

Once we got to the pay phone, we realized that it was in front of a deserted gas station. Luckily, the phone was still connected. “Thank you God.” And I remembered the proper number because my husband answered. Of course, the inevitable question comes up: he wanted to know how I got a flat. It was HIS car! But MY flat!

He said he'd come "soon" and my daughter and I started the walk back. A farmer/ neighbor was driving by, saw us and picked us up for the ride back, by which time my husband was just arriving. He fixed the flat, and said to us "Just go home; go directly home, the spare won't go any farther than home." Was that a hint?

I mean, what else could go wrong with the day? The cat died. A calf died. The tire died. That's three. That was enough. Right? Wrong.

We got home and my daughter headed for the shower. I called my mother, many states away, because I want to cry about my cat. She, unfortunately, saw the underlying humor in so many disasters all in one day, and told me to go have a hot shower and to cry my eyes out. Well, you know what happens when you get permission to cry. You can't. You buck up, and wonder what THAT was all about.

Once my daughter was out of the bathroom, I went in to take my hot shower and couldn't cry a tear. I felt like I wasted a phone call to my mother, who certainly had more on her mind than my insignificant troubles. I decided to get on with the day, and took a load of laundry down to start a wash, and saw that I needed to put a wet load into the dryer. When I started the dryer…IT BLEW UP! Sparks flew EVERYWHERE!

About that time I heard my husband at the top of the stairs, as he had just arrived home. He said "Hi, I'm home," and I said..."Guess what?" He couldn't believe that the sparks I saw were the size of the aurora borealis. I was later validated when the electrician told me I was lucky I didn't see more than sparks, as one-half of the wiring 'coil' was literally "gone", let alone "fried".

So when you’re having a bad day, just remember my little story of the day the cat died…

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