In what is coming to feel like the latest installment of The Winter That Won’t Quit, Maude had an accident Friday night. She slipped on the new snow on our gravel driveway(the same snow that turned DH’s 49 minute drive home from work into a 2 1/2 hour nightmare—in an AWD Subaru!) and fell and couldn’t get up. It was about 6pm, 25° and snowing. She tried repeatedly to get up, but couldn’t seem to get her legs coordinated, and the footing was terrible, and so she just succeeded in working her way down the driveway. ED was sprinkling ashes in front of her for traction (we keep a couple of bucketsful in the winter for that purpose) but it was no good—she just couldn’t get her feet under her.

At one side of the drive is a steep drop-off into a little creek, and as darkness fell and she continued heaving her way down the hill, it soon became apparent that she was headed over the edge if we didn’t stop her. Now each time she began the thrashing attempt to get to her feet, ED and I used every muscle in our bodies to keep all thousand pounds of her out of the creek. Neither of us could leave her side, because neither of us were strong enough on our own to hold her back, so we couldn’t go get help.

Finally we whooped and hollered enough to get Bernard out of the house, and she called a neighbor to come help us hold Maude so that I could run in and call a vet and otherwise figure out what to do. At this point we were starting to wonder what the heck had happened to DH, and another neighbor arrived home after her own harrowing drive home from work, and came to offer her support. Maude was settling down a bit, but was only 2 or 3 feet from the drop-off.

I won’t bore you with every last detail, but as DH got home it became apparent that not only was Maude not going to be getting up that night, she also couldn’t be left alone for even a few minutes. So while Bernard and her spending-the-night friend made supper, DH, ED and I came up with a plan. We had already covered her with an old sleeping bag, since the snow was coming down hard enough to get her pretty wet. Now we added a plastic tarp and replaced the  sleeping bag with a couple of wool blankets. Then we broke open a couple of bales of old hay around her, both for insulation, and for ground padding. We gave her several doses of arnica, and offered her a bucket of war molasses water, which she declined. She also declined hay, but enjoyed her favorite treat (a whole orange). Then we settled in for one long, long night. Two of us were with her at all times, with the third taking fifteen minute breaks inside—long enough to warm up, pee, and drink a hot cup of something, but not long enough to get sleepy from the warmth.

We started off snuggling with Maude, but when she started thrashing again, this became too dangerous. We figured out that when she started thrashing, it meant she was ready to be pushed over onto her other hip, which she could almost, but not quite, accomplish on her own. Gradually, over the course of that dark, snowy, windy, cold night we got her moved over closer to the middle of the driveway, farther from the creek, allowing us to sit  in the back of the car, out of the wind, instead of on high alert right at her side. She was fairly contentedly chewing her cud in between needing to be flipped, and finally at around six a.m. we were comfortable enough to sit in the car with the heater on.

At daybreak DH started making phone calls and with the help of lots of neighbors and a tractor we got her moved into the barn into a deep bed of hay (that was a traumatic and hair-raising experience—one I would prefer to never repeat). We gave her a dose of banamine yesterday and will give her another today. We took turns during the night going out in pairs and rolling her onto her other side. Her appetite is fantastic, and her spirits are, too. She loves being in the barn with Pearl and the calves—when DH and I went to the barn at 5 this morning, the calves were both snuggled next to her in the hay.

We’re hoping she’s going to get up on her own, but we’re prepared to start lifting her with a come-along each day if we need to. It’s hard to imagine the farm without Maude!

Some things I’m thankful for:

• Our incredible, thoughtful, loving neighbors! I can’t imagine life without you people!
• The Keeping a Family Cow forum and all its wonderful and helpful members.
• My awesome, smart, hardworking girls.
• And, strangely, Facebook. I was astonished to learn how many of my friends are online at the strangest times. It was nice to be able to briefly connect with friends during my 15 minute breaks.