A valuable lesson about wearing jewellery on the farm | Animal Magic

It was a completely natural birth. Mum launched her newborn onto a satisfyingly deep bed of clean straw. I suspect that she would have done a fine job of cleaning him up too, if we hadn’t been there. But as we were, the herdsman suggested one of us should clear any mucous out of its mouth to get its breathing started nicely. I leapt forward to volunteer.

The calf was a good one, born as big as an adult German shepherd dog.

He was lying in the straw, so I lifted his head onto my lap, and thrust my whole left hand into his mouth, carefully wiping away the birthing fluids. The sense of wonder that filled me as he shook himself and began to start moving around was lovely.

However, a few minutes later that changed to horror.

Where was my ring?

I had been wearing a very precious and unique signet ring, as usual. But it was missing.

Our first thought was for the calf. If he had swallowed it, would he be at risk?

The combined thinking was that my ring was too small to cause him any problem. But my family were not going to be happy that I had lost such a precious heirloom.

My friends and the farm workers all helped me to search through the straw. But the bedding was well over twelve inches deep. Talk about a needle in a haystack! I felt sure that I had lost it forever.

Sadly, we had to give up as the light faded.

But unknown to me, the herdsman had a plan.

He brought out his metal detector, and over a period of several days he gradually emptied piles of cow pat riddled straw out of the box, and carefully ran his detector over each spadeful.

And he found my ring!

I couldn’t thank him enough. Such a kindness, which I naturally repaid with a suitably alcoholic gift.

And that’s when I stopped wearing any valuable jewellery when on the farm!

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