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Op-Docs

Calving Season: Coming of Age on a Montana Cattle Ranch

A teenager helps her family save newborn calves during a snowy spring.

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Calving Season

A teenager helps her ranching family save calves during a snowy spring.

[motor running] [groans] Oh. [cow cries] Something ain’t quite right with the baby, is there? [cow groans] [cow moans] Oh … [vehicle drives off] [vehicle approaches] [cow moos] [cows moo from shed] 60 pounds? 80. 80? God, some of the ones that seem so tiny are huge. Um-hmm. He looks like a 70, 60 … [cow groans softly] No dying on us. Oh, you’re one of those wobbly ones, ain’t you? Come on. All right, well … see you in an hour or two. [children shouting and playing] [rooster crowing] Oh, I almost got you in the face. [dog barks] Ready, Rosie? [child screams] O.K. Whoa! [laughter] That was a good jump! Carrie, Ken — Ken get on here. Ken, Trudy. Whee! They used, like, when Grandpa Foss was a baby, that’s the only thing that they had. Well, the back things are, like, really — I know … — You could snap it. We’ll have to fix this. Oh, all we got to do is put a board on. Yeah, well, I don’t want you guys getting stabbed by these nails back here. Where’s my bike? You want to go put a board on it right now? I have no idea if we even have a big enough board to put on that. [cow groans] Hey, there, [inaudible]. Ah! There you go. Come on. You got to work with me here. [sniffles] How’s that? There we go. Look at that. All by yourself. Oh! Easy now. Bring that leg back up. Bring it back up. I’ll fall down! Stand up! [cow bellows] [cow groans] [cow grunts] Well we’re just going to give him just a little bit, O.K.? We’ll give him just a little bit. What do you think? Should we name him? Um, Frodo? Frodo? [laughs] She’ll be Frodo. Well, I guess that’s as good name as any. Turn that heater on for you. [heater starts] There we go. There we go. O.K., buddy. Come here. Frodo, you got it. O.K., are you ready? Other way, bud. Other way. Oh, there. Yup, yup. There you go. See how he’s trying? He’s trying. His little tongue’s a-licking. Aah! Frodo, that’s just gross! [inaudible] at me. Look at him. He’s nursing. Good job, buddy. Good job. O.K., Mom, I’ll stop now? O.K., go ahead and pull. His tongue … Because he kind of stopped. You got to listen. Because sometimes they’ll take a breath and they’ll suck the milk down in their lungs at the same time. So you’ve got to — yeah, sometimes you’ve got to pull that out. … little nose a little twitch. Twitch, twitch, twitch … Oh, look it. He says, ”Hi, that’s such good stuff. I can’t even pull my tongue back in my mouth. [laughs softly] [motor running] [cow moos softly] [metal gate slams] Mom, Mom! Don’t let her out! She wants to lay down. Do you want her to lay down? What do you think? I don’t know. I’ve — first time I ever pulled a calf. Dad’s never left me alone. Well, she wants to lay down. Well, then let her lay down. Just let her go. Let her go. Are the knees trying to get out? There a little bit. [cow moos in distance] [cow groans loudly] Come on, push, baby. There you go. Push … push. [cow grunts] Oh! [cow groans loudly] There you go. Push. Blech. It doesn’t want to come out. No. It does not want to come out. Where’s your nose at, above. Right there. He’s not sideways, is he? The shoulder is, I think. I wouldn’t piddle around too long. I’m trying not to. Push — pull down on the baby. When you pull, pull down. It’s not like I’ve pulled a calf a 110 times, either. But you’ve pulled from a goat. [cow groans] You’re doing good, mama. There we go. Let her get dilated … [cow groans] [grunts] You just be careful. If she starts going down, you get out of the way. [grunts] Push, baby. Push. [cow moos] [cow cries repeatedly] [metal clangs] [thundering hooves] Hey! Hey! Hey! Woo! Woo! [cattle bellow]

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A teenager helps her ranching family save calves during a snowy spring.CreditCredit...Nathan Reich

Mr. Reich is a documentary filmmaker.

Montana’s harsh winter persists into April. That’s bleak by most metrics, but especially so if you’re a cattle rancher — the snows continue straight into calving season. When I spent a winter there to make this short film, I was astonished by the conditions: Pregnant cows would wander off alone to give birth and drop their babies into freezing ice, and calves would shiver as they struggled to survive their first night. To save the newest members of their herd, ranching families work through the snowy nights in rotating shifts, searching for newborn calves with their flashlights and pulling them into the warming shed.

I met this ranching family after visiting the nearby town of Marmarth, N.D., a few miles east of the Montana border. It was a strange, nearly forgotten little town of a hundred residents that had been a thriving community before the railroad was rerouted, and now it represented the cycle of boom and bust that has come to characterize so many towns in that area. The family who rented me my room owned a cattle ranch and were preparing for calving season. It was not long before I met their seven children, grandparents and great-grandparents. We shared Christmas dinner. I was adopted.

Seeing what goes into raising animals for consumption was an eye-opening experience. What struck me most was the intimacy and comfortable relationship each child had with the life and death of the animals. Their jobs on the farm were not just excuses to teach responsibility; they were critical to the family’s livelihood. I could not help comparing how drastically different their childhoods were from mine growing up in the suburbs of San Francisco.

Like the children in this film, most cattle ranchers are born into the job. It is hard and often thankless work that can stretch for months with no days off, and everything comes down to a successful calving season. All so we can eat.

I hope this small story reminds us of a bigger perspective — that though life is hard, it is still filled with compassion and beauty as the cycles of birth and death go on.

Nathan Reich is a nonfiction filmmaker and musician based in San Francisco, and is a recent graduate of the Stanford University Documentary Film and Video program.


Op-Docs is a forum for short, opinionated documentaries by independent filmmakers. Learn more about Op-Docs and how to submit to the series. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Op-Docs newsletter.

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