Little Jennifer, or, be careful what you say to a farmer

Round 2 of the baby blizzard hit and Clover popped out a darling little buckskin doeling and a moon-spotted buckling, and then Sandy dropped two little wiseacre bucklings - already they are very mischievous, trouble is their middle name if not their first - and then a couple of days later Abby went into labor. She was as big as a house, and I don't mean a Tiny House, and you could just tell from looking at her that she was going to split her aces and double down. She doesn't go in for singletons or twins, what's the point of that. She is the only one here except for me to ever have quads.

She started in pushing and it wasn't good. She worked and worked and finally two feet appeared but they were back feet and the farmer set to pulling and out came an ENORMOUS buck kid. His cord had broken too soon and he didn't make it. Not a good start.

But Abby pulled herself back together and popped out a tiny doeling who rolled across the barn floor like a ping pong ball, so small that Abby hardly noticed she had had it. But Abby is a pro and she performed a thorough straw search in the area right behind her like all the expert kidders always do and she found the ping pong doeling and set to licking it and it was up and around in no time but here came the next one and this one was coming head first with one leg back which ought to be easy but it was a struggle the way it had its shoulders wedged, but then finally it plopped out, a good-sized girl. Abby was dog tired but this one was in nice shape too, up and around in no time. The farmer bounced Abby hoping that was all.

But it wasn't. Sure enough there were four.

Abby was starting to shake and wouldn't take her electrolytes because she wanted to get things done and the two little doelings were starting to cry because they hadn't had any milk yet what with all the pulling and rearranging and Abby laid down again to try to get the fourth one out and the farmer set the timer to 20 minutes because Abby had already worked too hard but before the 20 minutes were up the farmer went back in and a big giant downward-diving head was crowding the runway with no feet in sight and the farmer tried again but Abby was frustrated and moving around and wouldn't stand for any more inspections and so the farmer looked at the clock and sure enough it was after midnight.

Well there are very few people you can call after midnight in the country to come and lend a hand with veterinary obstetrics, especially on Memorial Day weekend. But the farmer's neighbor Jen had made the mistake that very day of saying, "if Abby has any trouble, you know you can call me."

She had forgotten to say "but not after midnight." And when the farmer went outside and looked across the fence, sure enough the light was on at Jen's. Who knows maybe it was only the porchlight that stays on all the time,  but anyway the farmer said to no one in particular, "oh good, Jen is up," as if that made it true, and ran for the phone, and the next thing you know Jen came over and held Abby's head and with a little bit of bellowing and rearranging the farmer was able to get in and grab one leg, and then two, and then to pull out an exceedingly round-headed doeling. The doeling was pancaked and a little bit hard to start but after some smacks she sputtered to life.

She got a lecture on tardiness which she didn't listen to, because her sisters were born yesterday. But she waited until today.

She was supposed to have a fancy E name but instead she will be called Little Jennifer.

LJ shows off her big round head