Cannon Bone

by William Coolidge III

When I was a young boy growing up on the family farm, south of Jay Village in upstate New York, I used to help out with as many of the daily chores as I could. Naturally, there were always more tasks that needed tending to in the wintertime, when all the farm animals were kept in the barns, to shelter them from the cold and snow of the harsh, Adirondack winters. With approximately 30 head of milk cows, several young replacement heifers, half a dozen brood sows, a pair of work horses, and assorted rabbits, chickens, young calves, two ponies, a goat and other “small stock,” there was never a lack of things to do, I can assure you.

The calves, horses, ponies and hogs all had to be watered morning and night, since there was no running water in their barns. (The two cow barns were the only buildings that housed enough large animal bodies to provide sufficient heat, thus preventing water pipes from freezing on frigid winter nights.) Aside from the milking, which my dad and Uncle Bob tended to, there was all of the other livestock to feed, water and supply fresh bedding for each day. Additionally, each winter morning when the weather allowed, we would let the young heifers out of their barn to get some fresh air and exercise in the barnyard for several hours. If it was well below zero, snowing or extremely windy, the heifers would have to forgo this daily ritual, for their own protection. But on crisp, sunny winter days, they enjoyed cavorting around the enclosed barnyard and basking in the mid-day sun.

At any one time during the 60’s and early 70’s, I can recall my grandfather (who was the patriarch of the Coolidge clan and farm) keeping six or seven young heifers as eventual replacements for our dairy herd. These youngsters were always from our very best cows – the healthiest, easiest keepers and most abundant milk producers. And so it was, each morning when the weather permitted, from mid-November thru early April, after the milking was finished, Gramp & I would let the heifers out of their stalls, open the barn door and stand back! For in their joie de vivre, each of the young milk cows-to-be would leap through the door into the fresh, cold air of an Adirondack winter forenoon.

In the wide alleyway between the heifer barn and the house barn was the parking spot for our McCormick manure spreader. Every few days, when the “honey wagon” had been filled, Dad would back the trusty Allis-Chalmers tractor up to it, hitch on and head out into the fields to fertilize them, in preparation for the coming growing season. Dad had built a ramp of thick, hemlock planks which would reach perfectly from either the horse barn or the heifer barn, as needed, so that by parking the manure spreader between the two barns, and jockeying the ramp into position, it was possible to maneuver a wheelbarrow from the barn, up the ramp, and dump its contents into the spreader.

One particular morning, in either late January or early February as I recall, one of the heifers sprang forth from the barn with an especially exuberant leap, and managed to jam her left foreleg between the tongue and side brace of the manure spreader – snapping her cannon bone in the process. The freak accident (which had never happened before or since on our farm) meant the loss of one of our best young heifers, since three-legged cows don’t fare very well on a dairy farm. So it was with a heavy heart that my dad placed a phone call to the neighbors up the road (who also happened to be our distant cousins), to see if they’d be in the market for some fresh beef. It being deep winter at the time, and the neighbor family being rather large, with many a mouth to feed, they were indeed interested in re-stocking their freezer with some meat. And so a deal was struck, money changed hands, and the injured heifer was transformed into steaks, roasts and ground beef.

But all of us residing on the Coolidge farm felt the loss of one of our best replacement heifers, and the sun didn’t shine quite as brightly that particular day, or for several days to come. For as welcome as cash money always was on a small farm, no amount of money can truly take the place of an animal that you’ve raised since the day it was born, nurtured along into a fine yearling, and ear-marked to become a member of your dairy herd in the not-toodistant future. On a small farm, you see, the livestock becomes almost a member of the family – you name them when they are born, you feed and care for them on a daily basis… you become attached, So, when one of them dies or is sold, for any reason, it leaves a tiny hole in your soul – an empty place that money cannot fill or repair. Only time can fill that void… time, and just maybe, a new baby calf named April.