HIDDEN SURPRISE
You will not believe what I found in the trees yesterday. Or maybe you will …
A teensy weensy baby calf. And not newborn either. Aunty Anna has been hiding her from me. 
She is dun colored though I only noticed this later in the day. 
She is inquisitive and sweet. 
After I found her I went back to the barn to prepare a space for Mother and Daughter (I think) but when I returned the calf was nowhere to be found. Aunty Anna looked at me quite clearly saying “Calf? What calf? “
Three more times I returned to the field to hunt for the calf who was so short she could literally stand underneath her mother and could have been standing in the long grass and still be hidden but there was no sign of her. 
Even Manu was already used to the baby so I concluded that Aunty Anna had been hiding her for a couple of days already so this was not out of character. 
Much later, at dusk actually, out of the corn emerged the little sprite. Very much like the baseball players in that movie Kevin Costner was in. one moment there was a corn field and then next this tiny elf of a calf standing watching her mother. Aunty Anna saw her immediately and they ran to each other peering across the electric wire. 
It took them a while to find where she could duck under the electric fence and I followed them up to the barn where I locked them both in. It was under the lights in the barn that her colour became really apparent. She is quite a dark dexter brown but not chocolately more velvety- like a bleached ribbon. I will bring these two back to the home fields today. There is not as much feed over this side but I don’t want this calf to get used to sleeping in the corn fields all day with coyotes and deer wandering about in there. Hidden. And I surely do not want her to get used to ignoring an electric fence. This side is set up for calves.
So how about that?! I calf at last.
I don’t regret selling Carlos the Tiny on though. Life is so much easier without a bull.
I hope you have a lovely day.
Love celi
WEATHER: Just lovely.
Saturday 09/16 10% / 0 in
Sunshine and some clouds. High 86F/30C. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
Saturday Night 09/16 20% / 0 in
Clear to partly cloudy. Low 66F/18C. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
Sun
6:34 am 6:59 pm
Moon
Waning Crescent, 12% visible 2:30 am 5:03 pm
74 Comments on “HIDDEN SURPRISE”
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that is wonderful and what a lovely surprise.. a little bit of Carlos the Tiny left behind. and what a protective caring mum ..great news and so pleased
Yes it is great news !
Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. A tiny wee calf. It’s a surprising world.
I love that expression!!
What a wonderful surprise!!
She looks adoreable.
She is awfully cute.. i think she is a SHE – have not examinined closely yet but it is pretty obvious with calves
That’s incredible! I’m so happy for you! And Aunty Anna, of course.
Yes – at last – a happy story
What a cutie! Well done, Aunty Anna!
She did do well – no drama at all
Delivered by a stork!
In case it matters, since yesterday your post emails show as coming from WordPress.com instead of the usual thekitchensgarden. At first glance I thought the email was spam.
Oh. That is not good. I will pass this on to samantha
Don’t know what happened with your blog posts, but they stopped coming to me after the “Jobs for Friday 8 September” post. I thought at first that your internet service ‘bit the dummy” and thought it best to wait it out. Well, finally I thought by now you’d have let the Fellowship of the Farmy know if something was really wrong, and I went and found all the past posts!!! Hmmm…… Next time it happens I will be more proactive and explore the site right away! The whole comments section has changed, with everyone’s pictures on the other side of the page! The pictures look bigger and brighter too, but maybe that’s because I haven’t seen any for over a week!
Oh, what a wonderful post to return to, a new baby on the Farmy!!! Too cool!!! 🙂
This is ongoing with wordpress unfortunately – most of us have to reregisters every now and then. I have almost no blogs coming to my inbox now – they have all dropped off – I just go and see who i want to see from the comments icons.. c
What a wonderful surprise! Aren’t animals clever, just getting on with things.
Yes – no worries for her apparently
What an astounding and unexpected discovery. Glad your weather is lovely.
The weather is truly beautiful at the moment – just amazing
What a little beauty, a gorgeous colour! Aunty Anna kept that one very quiet… She’s very little compared to her mama, it must have been a comparatively easy birth. Will you sell her? Does she have a value as a Dexter cross heifer?
No value at all – almost impossible to sell full Dexters here – and she is a Hereford/ ShortHorn/Dexter cross. We will see how she grows as to whether I sell her or not. I still have hopes of a lowline herd.
That calf is beautiful and some great pics you captured. Cows have such beautiful eyes, well at least your cows do. 🙂
She is very alert – and yes lovely big eyes.. c
Thats so great! Such a cute little thing.
Nothing like surprise baby – I was quite blown away at the time
The penultimate photo of mother and daughter is priceless! and deserves a card or mug or calendar page. I can’t imagine what you will do with her, but she’s lovely. I didn’t even realize that you had kept Aunty Anna all this time.
I, too, am receiving your blog as coming from WordPress.com and also some comments appear as gobbeledygook code “a:hover { color: red; } a { text-decoration: none; color: #0088cc; } a.primaryactionlink:link, a.primaryactionlink:visited { background-color: #2585B2; color: #fff; } a.primaryactionlink:hover, a.primaryactionlink:active { background-color: #11729E !important; color: #fff !important;
/* @media only screen and (max-device-width: 480px) { .post { min-width: 700px !important; } } */ WordPress.com “
J> The gobledgook are CSS script parameters. Specifically, the extract given relates to styling of links – whether underlined, coloured, and so on. My guess it is a theme that has coding errors, or lack of compatability with current WordPress.org version. It could be a plugin, but my guess is the theme itself.
Yes – I saw that – lets hope this is an issue we can iron out easily – there were bound to be bugs – Samantha is on it.. (and Saturday morning too ) sigh
I know – I had intended to sell her at the end of the season.. not now of course
What a wonderful surprise. Congratulations Aunty Anna. Wonders never cease…
It is wonderful –
No drama with Auntie Anna. Such a sweet baby!
J > Ha ha. What livestock owner hasn’t been caught out like this!
laughter.. c
Oh my yes! I bought a blue eyed pal o paint quarter horse. I thought she was just fat, all the animals at the farm I bought her from were fat. Imagine my surprise one Sunday morning to find a lovely little tri colored paint boy in the mud. Funny thing is our farrier was here the day before and never noticed a thing. We called him Sunday Surprise.
Wow!!!
I know!
That is quite a surprise!!!!
You can say that again!
Well that explains the udder doesn’t it! So glad that she has been discovered though, so no harm can be had from all this bush hiding and secret animal field nursery.
That was the worry – she is so so tiny –
Exactly what I was thinking. No wonder she showed no sign of pregnancy the day you mentioned her udder in the post; ). What a great Mother. Such an easy pregnancy you didn’t even notice (does that make her “a keeper”?; )
Wonderful! An unexpected gift for you after your summer of hard work and all the extraordinary care for Wai.
She is so beautiful with a devoted mama.
It is a very sweet surprise
Aw, Carlos left a parting gift, and Auntie Anna kept the secret as long as she could. What a sweet surprise. I find it a bit amazing that even as domesticated as livestock can be, there is still the innate pull to follow instinct. This baby calf hiding itself reminds me of how deer do – they look for just the right hiding place to bed down to rest. Congratulations on the new arrival!
Do deer always return to the same hiding place? c
Sometimes they do, especially the first week or two. After that mama doe walks them to the area she wants them to bed down in but the fawns pick their spot.
What a wonderful surprise! They are some very smart animals!
Fun isn’t it
Oh, my, wee Carlotta the calf is stunning!
Lovely wee girl – she looks like a tiny bird sitting in the hay
That name is perfect.
Honestly, this is astonishing. I can’t get over this…keep getting goosebumps up my neck. Will wonders never cease? (can’t remember where this expression came from but it just popped out) Congratulations to you and Auntie Anna. The baby is precious.
A wonder indeed
What a wonderful surprise. How exciting! I love your photos.
Thank you
Is she a keeper? If so, any ideas about her name? Beautiful eyes.
She will be around a while I think – I have a small boy thinking about a name
Oh too bad that she wasn’t born when they were still at the farm! Calves smell so good and their smooth little wet noses looking for a finger to suckle… *such a great memory: )
What a delightful surprise! So elfin. Maybe she should be Elvia, a name I’d not heard until I met R’s fabulous pianist colleague of that name. But I like SJPBF’s notion of Carlotta, too, which in turn reminded me of the vintage Bob Hope/Dorothy Lamour silliness ‘My Favorite Brunette’ (a film noir spoof) wherein she plays a baroness named Carlotta.
Never mind all that—your tiny beauty is a gift and the happiest sort of surprise, and isn’t Aunty Anna the cool customer!!!
xoxo
K
She is very cool – and a very good mum
Aunty Anna the Trickster. She had a hidden gem. I’m glad both appear healthy. Who knows what you will find on your next rambles? I figured it would have been a peahen nest. This is lovely.
I’ve thankfully had a pretty beautiful day but that just made it even lovelier. What a sweet dear calf. “A sprite”…perfect way of describing her! Wish I’d seen her with my own eyes. Happy for you.
what a lovely surprise! and such A SWEET Baby! Congrats all round!
That certainly explains the udder. Gorgeous little Sprite.
Heavens above – Mom just wanted a wee bit of private time with her little one before the clicking of cameras . . . gorgeous and precious that she is 🙂 ! All’s well that ends well dear Will said and methinks ‘Sprite’, which has been mentioned twice above, would be a vey appropriate name!
Auntie Anna…..and a wee one…tears sprang to my eyes…
She/he is beautiful! I’ll bet you nearly wept at the first sight of her! Congrats, Auntie Ceci!
Oh my! All of your babies are so precious and this one is right up at the top. I can only imagine your complete surprise. He’s so beautiful and being so tiny seems to make him even more so. Good old Carlos was doing his job on the sly… Ha! And I was thinking yesterday how Aunty Anna seemed very thin to be expecting. Well, does this mean you’ll have fresh milk all winter? That’s a bonus, isn’t it?
Adorable!
Does this mean you will have milk all winter??? Oh Lord. I hope not. It sounds like such cold miserable work in the winter time.
Oh my god, what a little doll!
What a delightful surprise! All’s well that ends well.
Congrats on finding a baby calf. Beautiful calf too.
What a sweetie .. I’m so pleased you found her 😃
What a sweet surprise!