Bag of Bones

....my father..."bless his heart"...I just love it when he calls and says, " Ok...I got something for you". First thing a person asks is...Is it Free!!??? Now my Dad lives some 45 minutes aways and mentally still tackles all sorts of things, but it is his children who actually do the project he wants tackled..he is the Boss of making his interest ours. So he calls and he knew we were heading to the cemetary this weekend and we would be gone for the entire day. He was bringing up another "special needs" calf. He tells me that the rancher who likes to sell me his extra calves has another freebie. Man...like I needed another project..but what the heck..I have 3 extra to feed so why not??!! I asked if he could wait a day since I needed to help him and assess the project. He tells me "NO"!!! It needed fed and fed right away.."Oh Oh" I am thinking. So what, Dad, is the story! Ok..it's about a month old, ( now that is pretty big for my father to handle I think) and it's Momma has been trying to die for a while now. It hasn't been eating well at all. When Dad went to get it, he said the Cow was extremely thin and the calf was right with her also looking extremely thin. Not sick, just that the Momma didn't have the milk to feed herself and a baby proper. Then Dad told me the rest of the story..You see the Rancher is also close to 70 and my father getting closer to 80. They are riding a Mule (4 wheel kind) the two of them out into the pasture. My Dad and the rancher have to snag the calf from the Cow and haul it back to the vehicle. I see it now ...as the two slow moving men...are wrangling calves from a protective Angus. He survived...my Dad that is and also the calf. I had my neighbor boy go over and try to feed it while I was gone and then a good set of friends checked on and fed calves for me for the evening feeding. Everyone was telling me that calf was awfully big and the neighbor boy had told me it tried to "hook him" when he entered the pen ..saying he was "mean"!! By midnight I got home and the first thing I do...with alot of apprehension...was make a bottle and run in and see if I could get it to eat. I guarded the bad foot and entered pen...carefully...well....he is extremely thin. He was big boned but actually not that hard to handle and backed him into a corner. He took the milk like it was the best thing in the world. I used some whole Jersey milk for that feeding. By morning, he was licking his lips when he saw me. He hasn't missed a feeding for the weekend and I am showing the before photo here. Definitely a bag of bones!! I will show a better photo in a few days. After just a day, I am really noticing the difference already this morning. Wish I had taken a better photo the first day now!!