Sarah

Farming has a way of teaching you about the things in life that cannot be controlled. You watch animals being born, grow alongside them, care for them through the seasons, and become accustomed to their place in the rhythm of the farm. We raise animals knowing that sometimes they will only spend a year or two with us. It’s not easy, but as seasons come and go, we learn that nothing stays the same forever. Perhaps that is one of the quiet contradictions of farming: we learn to witness and accept the cycle of life, while still allowing ourselves to become deeply attached to the lives that pass through our hands, and our hearts.

For those who have followed us online or have spent time at the farm, there is a good chance you met Sarah. She was born on April 10, 2025, and from the beginning, there was something special about her that was difficult to put into words. She was Molly’s calf, and because she was a heifer, she was the last heifer born from the last cow of my Dad’s herd. Her father was Rex, our favorite bull who we had to part with. That connection alone made her incredibly special to us. From the day she was born, we imagined having her here for the next decade or so, watching her grow into a cow, raise calves of her own, and carrying that connection to my Dad’s herd forward.

But Sarah was special for reasons that went far beyond where she came from. She had a personality unlike any animal we have known. There was a gentleness about her, but also an unmistakable joy in being alive. She trusted us completely and enjoyed our company. There was something almost peaceful in the way she would be around us, as though she had never learned to be afraid of the world. She seemed to simply accept people, accept life, and find something good in every moment.

It is difficult to explain how an animal can become so deeply woven into your heart and into the fabric of a farm. Sarah somehow did. She became more than a heifer we cared for. She became a living connection to where our farm had come from, and a part of what we imagined its future would look like. There was something about her that felt almost like a window into what a completely trusting, joyful spirit could look like, and we were incredibly fortunate to have known her.

Sadly, we suddenly and unexpectedly lost Sarah back in July, along with her pasture partner, Lois, who was about the same age. The two heifers were in a separate pasture from the herd because they were too young to breed and needed a few months to grow before being put in the same pasture as the bull. Although they were days away from being moved in with the herd, they found an old tractor battery that had been buried decades ago, and were exposed to enough lead to poison them. They died very suddenly and quickly from lead poisoning, although we and the emergency vet didn’t know what was happening at the time. It took time for lab tests to confirm their cause of death, and then more time for us to find (and clean up) the source. The experience of having to see them pass away at a young age, while doing everything we could to try to save them, was a terrible loss.

The financial loss for our small farm has also been significant. Each heifer represented over a year of care, hay, pasture grass, and daily work. It would cost us roughly $8000 to buy two heifers their age in order to expand our herd of breeding cows like we had planned. We also ended up with a large veterinary bill for the emergency services and lab testing that was required to actually determine their cause of death. That testing allowed us to search for a source of lead and then find the battery and clean it up so other animals would not be harmed.

The circumstances of their deaths make the loss even harder to accept. Lead poisoning is a particularly devastating way to lose an animal because there is really nothing that can be done once excessive exposure has occurred. It was very disturbing to watch them die from poisoning. These were young, healthy heifers that had been growing normally and were only days away from being moved into the main herd, away from the thing that caused their death. There was no indication that anything was wrong with them until it was too late. What began as an ordinary day on the farm suddenly became a nightmare of a day where we were fighting to understand what was happening and working with the responding emergency veterinarian trying to save two animals that we had cared for since they were born.

There is also something especially difficult about knowing that their deaths were caused by something that had been hidden on the property for decades. An old tractor battery, buried long before we could have known it was there, ultimately became the cause of their death. They were simply doing what cattle naturally do: exploring their pasture and forest grazing, with no way for us to know that a dangerous object was hidden beneath the ground like a ticking time bomb. We had taken every reasonable step to provide them with a safe pasture, and yet something completely outside our knowledge and control resulted in their deaths. If only we had known the battery was there.  

We have lost calves and older cattle over the years when Dad was working the farm, as I (Dave) was growing up and even since managing the farm. This is part of farming, and although the loss of each animal makes us lose a piece of ourselves, this was much different. There are some losses you expect will hurt, and then there are losses that reach somewhere inside you that you didn't even know existed. Although Lois was shy and more nervous, we’d spent a lot of time with her this spring, so she warmed up to us and gained our trust. Sarah was different though. She had such a personality. She had a way about her. She was one of those animals that seemed to have a joy of existing and a mutual love of us. Over time, both Sarah and Lois became part of the daily rhythm of the farm. When we lost Sarah and Lois, something in us broke. Farming teaches you that loss is part of the life we've chosen. But this was different. We weren't prepared for the depth of grief we experienced after their death.

We found ourselves grieving the loss of these animals in a way we had never experienced before. It wasn't simply sadness. It was the strange emptiness that comes when something that has been part of your everyday life, and a beacon of happiness, suddenly isn't there anymore. Sarah had become special to both of us. Christina loved her too, and we shared the sadness of looking out across the empty pasture for the last couple months and knowing they weren’t there anymore.

In a bit of good news which we haven’t shared, because we couldn’t bring ourselves to share the bad news before this, Molly actually gave birth to a calf on August 8, 2026, when we weren’t sure that she was pregnant. He is a healthy bull calf and looks just like Sarah and Molly, as you can see from the picture below, from the day he was born.

Although this is a happy experience, we are still thinking of Sarah (and Lois) and what life would be like with her here and now we prepare for the next loss of moving Molly herself, who has been showing her age and is nearing the end of her life. When animals pass away, the farm work and growth continue, but we don't always move forward quite as quickly.