Running the Fence

Early November –

Today, my husband, son and some family friends moved the ranch’s 100-odd mother cows down the highway to the Weis place – the last job in a string of tasks necessary to finish a cycle begun last April. The calves that these cows bore last spring now, mostly, scatter through the meadows north of the house, weaned three days ago from those mama cows. Since this ranch runs as a yearling operation, those calves will winter on these meadows before being shipped to their summer range next spring, just before green-up.

And as the meadows are now their home, most of the newly-weaned calves graze voraciously, enjoying the still-tender grasses and fresh-flowing river water. But some still trot the fenceline, bawling for their mothers in pitiful, throaty cries that sound eerily like childrens’ cries. For three days, they’ve smelled and heard their mothers in the lots just south of the barn, where they were separated; instinctively, they turn toward their last point of contact in their bawling. They cry for their mothers in the place they last saw them.

I’ve helped with the weaning process more than usual this year, and repeatedly I’ve witnessed this instinct. Last Friday, after moving pairs across the highway, Shawn and I sat for hours watching so that the calves wouldn’t attempt to climb through the fence and cross back, looking for their mamas. The cows themselves were already grazing toward the center of the meadow, moving away from the highway into new pasture. If the calves, instead of crowding the fence to return to the old had just ventured oiut into the new, they would have found their mothers.

Equally, the mamas bawled and pushed against the corral lots after we weaned on Wednesday. This time, the confusion of the lot and discomfort of tight udders led to mamas also crying well into the night.

Change hurts. Even though the calves rarely nursed and had mostly weaned themselves. Even though the mothers now carry new calves and must conserve strength to sustain new pregnancies though winter. Even though new, ungrazed pastures wait for both cows and calves . . . still they cry.

I find myself hurting over change this autumn as well. My oldest daughter turns 21 tomorrow; the past year has been one of her small turnings-away from Shawn and me. Rejecting some of our values for her own. Deciding on paths we would not have chosen for her. Entering into relationships, jobs and life situations that worry us. Making mistakes. Fixing them her own way. Living her life, not ours.

How much I’ve been running the fence this fall: clinging to our past, both to lament its mistakes and mourn its passing. Resorting to behaviors suited to the mother of a child, but not the mother of a woman. Floundering for a new way to relate to this daughter who I know still needs me, but for what, exactly, I’m no longer sure.

But calves who run the fence looking for the past expend a lot of physical energy. Thus, the running results in lower weight at the scale and higher susceptibility to illness. No rancher wants to see calves run the fence for long.

Likewise, how much psychic energy have I burned running the fence? My behaviors don’t exactly look the same, and I certainly haven’t dropped weight. Instead, I’ve engaged – mostly with Shawn – in lengthy, circular conversations full of worry and anger but no real solutions, We’ve both slept fitful nights broken by quiet ruminations, and sometimes tears in the dark. Sadly, outbursts of mis-directed anger have singed my younger children, and conversations that needed my devoted attention have instead only received distracted, short-tempered replies. Real work has been postponed in favor of drawn-out muddling in my anxiety.

As I write, brilliant sun tinges the late-autumn grass gold, and the pungent smell of manure mixes with the dry, crisp barely-there scent of dry leaves. At nearly four p.m., the temperature hovers in the high 50’s, another day in a string of impossibly beautiful days this fall. And yet, the weather forecast tells me that temperatures will plummet beginning tomorrow night, and the skies will snow down winter by Monday. The change will arrive sudden as death.

November presents us with a month of taking stock, settling our accounts, mourning our losses. If we do our soul-work well this month, we hope to know gratitude, peace and joy as the holiday season approaches. Last weekend, we celebrated All Souls Day, el Dia de los Muertos, our chance to remember loved ones who have passed on. In many cultures, this holy day reminds us of what many faiths profess – of what I profess: that there is life after death, and that it is richer and more exquisite than what we can now imagine.

So much of my anxiety at Laura’s emotional weaning stems from not knowing what comes next. If I am not the protector, the provider, the nurturer, the teacher that I’ve been these last 21 years, then who am I? What role will I now play in my daughter’s life?  In all my children’s lives? As much as I am grieving for one daughter’s growing away, I am grieving for the end of a significant period of my adulthood. In what will seem only a heartbeat, even 10-year-old Katie will be moving into her own life.  And yet, even as I grieve, I wonder: could it be that the next stages of our family’s life will be richer, more exquisite than we can imagine?

Calves that “wean well” are calves who find the new grass, put their heads down, and begin grazing. They move into their reality and remain strong. Likewise, my husband tells me the crew had little trouble moving the mother cows today because, after three days in the corral, they were ready to move on. I will not romanticize what is happening here: the calves that now graze the meadow will be sold for slaughter as yearlings; the mother cows, after producing a calf crop for seven to ten years, will also die. That is the business of ranching. But those who “wean well” go on to serve the larger purpose for which they’ve been raised; those who sicken from running the fence feed only the scavengers.

Motherhood gives me purpose; as this role diminishes, I’m not certain what other purpose will take its place. But it’s time to move on, if only to see what’s over the rise. I don’t know for sure what’s ahead, but I’ll hope for work that nurtures and protects  on a new level, for the joy of grandchildren, for adult friendships with all my children. In fulfilling my next purpose in this world, I’ll hope for oxbowed watering holes, cottonwood-shaded glades, and a few last pockets of late autumn sunshine.