I was moving the big mama dairy cows out of the barn and into the lane so we could cultivate the barn when I heard my name called, "Katherine." I replied, "yes." And this was repeated three times with increasing urgency so that I started running. As I rounded the corner of the pole barn I dropped my goad stick. Back tracking later I guessed that was the moment I saw the situation. Allison was sitting in a feed trough in a paddock of heifers. And the trough, oddly, seemed to be full of heifer. Which is wrong. My mind couldn't totally compute the situation as I was climbing through the fence toward them. As I arrived Allison said, "Grab her tail, we've got to get her up, one, two three!" I got under her rump and pushed and Allison was up top doing whatever she did and out popped a whole heifer in the proper configuration of hooves down on the ground, head up in the air, and nothing laying in the trough.

It was all said and done in the space of minutes and after the farm settled back to the quiet predictable routine of every morning. Little heifers can die like that, trapped so they bloat and can't breathe. Probably, a bigger one knocked her over.