The Story of Hope

     It began, well it began as you might expect. In the middle of a windswept Kansan pasture, there was a calf. Not a fluffy, fat and happy calf, but a cold, lonely and hungry one. All the other cows had been moved to better pastures, but she had been missed. No one knew that one cow had calved early and nestled her calf into winter's tall, parched grass. No one noticed her there, huddled down, conserving heat. No one knew that she was left all alone.
     The proprietor of a neighboring pasture saw her when she was still just a few days old. He notified her owner who came and picked her up, but this left him with a problem. What should he do with the calf? His cows were spread over multiple pastures and he had no clue whose offspring she was. She was nearly as likely to die with the wrong cow as with none at all.
     That was how she came to be with us. The owner called our dad up and asked if we'd like her. Being the cow and calf lovers Farm Boy and I were, we said 'YES!' So dad picked her up and brought her home. We raced out to see her shakily standing in the front of the trailer. We mixed up for her some powdered milk replacer and coaxed/pushed her out of the trailer. After a few days she got the whole 'nursing from a bottle' thing down, but it took a while and the intermediate time was filled with milk-drenched clothing.
     The next order of business was what what to name her. Farm Boy and I co-owned her with an older brother who suggested 'Hope', because we 'hoped' she would live. Despite my getting mad at him (somehow I thought that was cruel and callous, I'm not sure why) we agreed it was a good name. So Hope she was dubbed!