Health Care

As most of you probably know, I lead a non-profit life. Not only (as my mom and Sam like to joke) do I never make much profit, but I also love a good cause. Today I want to focus on a very important issue: health care. Did you know that when cows are not given appropriate preventative treatments for intestinal worms the end result can be diarrhea, malnutrition, and poor growth?!? (I can see my farmer and rancher family members nodding their heads and saying that, yes, they did in fact know that already). Well, when I heard about this problem, I knew I had to get involved! (Also, when Sam's family asked us to come help and Sam said yes that was another moment when I knew I would be involved.) This is a picture of Sam, right after he heard about parasites and malnutrition:

I have to tell you, worms break his heart. And this is me, ready to kick those intestinal worms where it counts:

In order to stamp out parasites before they start you just put on some gloves, guess how much the cow weighs (to me they all looked to be about 550 lbs, but Sam's brother said that actually isn't the case), and then squirt this blue stuff on their back and neck.

This job is much harder than it sounds. I begged Sam to let me hold the cows' heads, but he said he hadn't eaten as much biscuits and gravy as me for breakfast and he wasn't sure if he would have the strength to pour the medicine.

This is Sam's dad giving the cow a shot. I know it is for some good purpose, but I'm not sure what that purpose is.

Look at him smiling. That head holding job is a piece of cake.

Most of the cows were pretty cooperative (pictured here, they look like aliens because I couldn't figure out how to use the red eye fixer on my new computer). However, there was one rascal that would not budge down the chute.

Sam's Mom tried to give him a little nudge, they tried to give him a food trail, they sweet talked him, they gave him a offer he couldn't refuse, but nothing would do. Some people do not want to be helped. During this time, Sam and I had to stay out of the way so he wouldn't see us at the end of the chute and get suspicious. I used that opportunity to take some shots of the farm:

Of Sam's caught-in-a-spider-web mime skills:

Of Sam walking into the barn:

And me attempting a carefree swing on the gate. You can't win 'em all...

At the end of the day, I'm very sad to report that one cow may indeed end up with 3/4 of the disease that the shot was for, because he mostly got away from us. Even though the day was very successful, Sam and I will always ask ourselves if there was more we could have done...