Oreo

. . .is the proposed name for the calf that our faithful old dairy cow, DMC, gave birth to last night.

DMC is a no-nonsense Ugandan cow. Like many women, she bore her fifth pregnancy without a word of complaint and barely a hint of what was happening internally. It was only when her milk changed to a thick proteinaceous colostrum a few weeks ago that we were really sure she was pregnant . . . which was a posthumous surprise from Sir Loin whom we thought had failed to leave his genetic contribution behind him prior to his untimely demise. Yesterday Scott noted the passing of the mucus plug that portends labor, and when we watched DMC she laid down a few times and seemed restless. We decided to separate her from her 14-month-old daughter Truffle by closing the gate between the two halves of the pasture, in case Truffle bothered her, but he separation upset both of them so much we re-opened the gate. Other than that, nary a moo of distress escaped DMC's lips. We saw her at 10 pm, and when Scott made one final check about an hour later before we went to bed . . three pairs of eyes reflected in his flashlight: two big pairs at chest level and one tiny pair on the ground. We got more light and saw the fragile little black-and white calf. It rained most of the night and I worried about the baby being too cold . . but this morning, there she was, on spindly legs, following her mother. She's smaller than the last two calves DMC has had, and hasn't caught on to nursing yet. In keeping with our chocolate theme (Dairy Milk Chocolate is the mom, the name of a Cadbury bar purchasable here in Uganda, and her calves born here in Bundi were Ghiardelli (a dark-brown male whom we returned to Atwoki in Fort Portal) and Truffle (a cream and brown female)) Scott is calling this one Oreo, since she's mostly black with some white in the middle.

Besides being a fun farm real-life experience . . the calf means milk for our team, which sustains the life and growth of our kids. So we're very thankful and blessed with this new baby.