"First, there was one..."

In the summer of 2007, I came home from a trip to find a black Angus cow grazing peacefully in the pasture. Knowing that her owner would want her back, I hung flyers in the feed store and other locations around town. Weeks passed with no inquiries. In the mean time, I grew attached to this mellow bovine and named her "Tenielle" because of the number "10" on her ear tag.

Later on, a neighbor from a couple miles away, saw a flyer and gave me a call. He came to my place to identify the cow. Indeed, Tenielle belonged to him and I made an offer to buy her. However, my neighbor gave her to me because she was a "flight risk" and I had cared for her for so long. We began talking about his herd and my wish to acquire more cattle. We worked out a deal for me to trade hay to him for a couple more cows.

My neighbor and I worked our hay deal, making me the owner of a nice, young cow. Deciding to keep a "T" naming theme, she became Tallulah. Tenielle seemed pleased to have another cow on the place for company.



In March, 2008, I acquired another young cow when my neighbor needed more hay. My herd grew to three with the addition of Tonya. It was nice to see these black cows in the pasture, contrasted with the light colored grass.



Meanwhile, Tenielle had become quite rotund and I passed it off as her love of good pasture. On April 15, 2008, Tenielle resolved her weight issue by giving birth to a lovely heifer I dubbed "Taxi", as she was born on "tax day". In less than a year, my herd had increased to four with the first calf born on Diamond Run Farm.



As 2008 moved into summer, Tonya began to gain more weight than normal. Having been surprised with the birth of Taxi, I contacted my neighbor to see if this young cow could have been bred before leaving his place. It seems that he did have a bull running with the herd, but didn't know if Tonya had been bred or not. Through the summer, Tonya's girth grew larger and it became apparent that she was going to have a calf. As to the calving date, I had no clue.



Then, in September, I saw a much slimmer Tonya grazing with the herd. I walked out but found no calf. In the following days, I saw no calf nursing and went to look for it, multiple times, with no success. I became concerned that something had happened to the calf, so I increased my searches to several times per day. During one of my daily calf hunts, I almost fell over the new heifer, lying in tall grass. She was so small and petite, I named her "Tinker", short for Tinkerbelle. Tonya and baby Tinker were fine, after all. What a relief!



At the end of the year, the Diamond Run herd increased to five, with the birth of another heifer. The calves were growing, the cows were content and the hay crop was plentiful. 2008 was a very good year, indeed.