I had a whole other topic to write on and post for you today.
It’s funny how life takes sharp turns, when you aren’t expecting, but
a new story lay out before me in a whirlwind, and must be told:
The story of when Nash the Backyard Steer came to local fame.
I’ve written of him many times.
Many of you know all about how an orphaned calf came to live in the backyard of my duplex for months.
You followed him trampling my garden, and showing up beside our hot tub as we soaked.
You followed my neighbors Maggie and Dave and their commentary, wondering just what all that noise was, and why their cat was so spooked.
Last week I posted the tale of us setting Nash, now eight months old and nearing 600 pounds, free on a ranch overlooking the ocean where he was to live out his days.
We had worked out a deal with the cattle manager who has grazing rights on the ranch he had originally come from, and he had agreed to let Nash roam free there with the other cows, forever free from sale or butchering.
It was hard to let him go that day, but we trusted he was in a much better place.
Cows need room to roam and wander.
We sobbed as we drove off leaving him there.
Sometimes in life what’s best still causes a bit of pain.
In the days that followed, my daughter Paige and I, who had raised him by hand lovingly, had slowly started to feel better about where he was; out roaming all that land, under the star spray.
We’d smile and talk about him. My dad would see him and send blurry videos from his phone.
On two occasions he had even fed him a bottle again while all his new cow buddies just stood and blinked, looking on, even though he’s been long weaned.
On Wednesday I had sent a message to him asking casually if he had seen Nash again that day.
“Not today,” he had messaged back.
“But I’ve got the bottle and grain ready!”
After two days of not seeing him, however, worry started to set in,
and my dad contacted the cattle manager of the 11,000-acre ranch to see if he had seen him.
On Sunday I got a call from my dad asking if we were home.
I thought it was a casual visit, and poured him a drink, added ice, but could see a hesitation eating him.
He had something to tell us, but how? He clearly didn’t know.
The news had come to him that the ranch manager had failed to tell some workers who had come to the ranch to load up his cattle to sell at auction to be sure to look out for the little one without an ear tag, or a brand, and leave him out of the lot. He wasn’t his to sell, that one was ours.
Those workers would later tell him that they had, indeed, seen a calf without an ID tag, but had shrugged it off and loaded him into the trailer anyway with about 300 others headed to auction in a nearby town.
By the time we heard of it, Nash had already been sold.
Frantic calls to the auction house had us hitting dead ends.
The only person they could give information to was the cattle manager who had sold him from the ranch, because he held the bill of sale.
I cried so much that day I was physically sick.
It’s hard to think of what your next move should be when your heart is shattered like that.
The potential permanent loss of a thing you love is a different kind of ache.
A post on social media had messages and text absolutely flooding in.
I don’t think I’ve ever talked to so many strangers on one day.
I had everything from ideas of numbers to call, and contacts to reach out to, to people commenting that I’d never find him, and to just give up because “He’d be meat in a few days.”
I squinted my eyes and breathed slowly at the nay-sayers.
Those people don’t know who I am.
They don’t know the power behind the love I hold for this calf I bottle raised.
A needle in a haystack.
Against every single odd.
I’d write the rest of the story out, but I think I’ll let you read it as it played out in my personal Facebook status form:
- July 24 – 11am
“We are completely distraught.
My dad just came by with pain in his eyes to tell us that when he didn’t see Nash day before yesterday he thought it was odd.
A conversation with the ranch owner and some digging revealed that some guys he had hired, even though they’d promised they wouldn’t,
on Thursday had rounded Nash up with the other cattle and taken him to auction where he was sold off.
I cannot stop the tears.
We are now in a race against the clock.
We have contacted the auction yard who will not give us much information. We are printing fliers, and I am about to write a social media post that I am begging you all to please share in the off-chance it will be seen.
Any other suggestions are appreciated.
My dad is offering a $1000 reward for his return and will drive to another state if he has to to bring him home.
I cannot describe the devastation I feel.
Paige is shattered.
Completely gutted.
The guys that loaded him said that they had noticed one without identifying markers, and took him anyway.
Please, please let him be found.”
- July 24, 4:00pm
“NASH UPDATE:
I’ve had lots of people asking, so yes – I did take down the post about Nash missing due to some personal politics, and not wanting to upset anyone.
Thankfully, the ranch manager is being cooperative and doing all he can to help.
I believe this was truly an honest mistake.
I have spent absolutely all day crying.
I look like I live under a bridge collecting tolls.
So far I have spoken to three people at the auction yard he was taken to, have messaged the state brand inspector, and put in an email to the auction yard in Turlock that it sounds like he may have been taken to.
From what I can tell tomorrow they weigh all incoming cattle, and Tuesday is when they’d be re-sold. Turlock is 2.5 hours from us.
I was tempted to pitch a tent and wait in the parking lot.
I am desperately hoping to get to someone who could really help us tomorrow early before he moves on even further.
At least I’m feeling some hope that we can maybe find him.
I thought today would be a rest day, but instead I spent it in total heartbreak.
Thank you all so much for your shares and messages and prayers.
Keep it up. I’ll keep you posted on any new leads I get.
Praying so much we get to bring him home.”
- July 24, 4:32pm
“Another update!!!!
Through my original post on Facebook and so many shares I was able to track the number of a worker at the Turlock auction yard 2.5 hours away.
Once I started talking to him he kindly stopped me and told me he had ALREADY HEARD ABOUT NASH and had already been working on locating him for hours today.
He told me many many people are on this case, and promised me he’d call me tomorrow.
His words made me cry all over again as I explained we were willing to pay up to $2000 for his return, and he just softly laughed and told me,
“Oh, Honey. You won’t have to do that.
We’re going to do everything we can.”
I am absolutely floored by the FLOOD of help that has happened today.
Dozens of strangers messaged, and sent tips and phone numbers to me.
I do not know how news of him had already reached all the way there, but apparently thousands of people are on the case.
I’m feeling much more hopeful and so grateful for the chain of loving hands reaching towards me.
Looks like I might not have to go all Beth Dutton after all.”
- July 24, 6:00pm
“NASH UPDATE:
I spoke this morning with the contact at the Turlock Auction House that handled Nash’s sale.
Nicest, most helpful guy.
He said in all his many years of cattle ranching he has never once seen a case like this.
It appears Nash has gone one of two places, both still within California, thankfully.
One rancher bought 3 cows from the ranch where he was, and they have yet to reach him,
and another bought roughly 300 for the Cattleman’s enterprise, and are located up north.
That ranch has workers currently riding through the cattle trying to see if they can spot him.
This is all good news, bringing us closer.
If the rancher with only 3 doesn’t find him, (which should be simple to know) then that means we at least know who has him,
even if he’s one of a big lot.
The auction worker assured me he will call by 6:00 with an update either way.
This could take awhile on a huge ranch with many cattle.
The fact that Nash is still small and will take months to fatten up more allows us some time, and is our saving grace.
It will be hard to not jump in a truck and head to that ranch to look for him myself if I hear that he is for sure there.
I know how to ride a horse.
Reigns in one, shaking a big old cow baby bottle in the other hand…
I will fight so long they make an Erin Brockovitch-type movie about me, only, I’m pretty sure Melissa McCarthy will be the lead in it.
I’m a fighter, but I’m realistic.
This is not a Julia Roberts movie.
I know what category I’m in.”
- July 25, 11:30am
“You guys,
WE THINK WE GOT HIM!!!
I was on a walk with the daycare kids when the call came.
A ranch owner in Dixon, hundreds of miles away bought three trailers full of cattle Thursday, one without an ear tag or branding.
They branded and tagged that one before they heard about this today.
Between photo and video comparisons, they’re almost positive it’s him, and tomorrow evening that steer will be in the back of a giant truck headed back here for official identification by us.
If it’s him, they will issue an official bill of sale so this never happens again.
I stood in the street and burst into tears.
God bless that Turlock auction man.
I would hug him so hard he’d seek asylum if I could get my hands on him.
And to the man I blocked on my “missing” post this morning, repeatedly telling me “from a cattle rancher who knows” that I’d definitely never be able to find him, and to go ahead and give up because he was months away from being meat, I’d like to give that aforementioned Beth Dutton Treatment and say,
“You don’t know who or what I am.”
- July 25, 7:45pm
“It looks like Nash is on his way back home.
(And to a new pasture even closer than before)
I just got off the phone with a big rig driver letting me know he’s going to where Nash is tonight to get him loaded.
He will be pulling back into Petaluma tonight at midnight, they hope, if all goes as planned.
There, they will hold him in a personal family corral overnight until around 9:00 tomorrow when the girls and I will drive out to meet my dad there with a trailer.
The way that this has come together,
the way we beat the odds…
I’ll never get over it.
I have cried until my face is sore.
My body aches from lack of sleep and tension.
When the cattle manager told us today that he didn’t want Nash back on the ranch from which he’d been mistakenly sold, my dad told me it would be OK, and we’d figure something else out. He was worried I couldn’t take anymore.
I assured him I was not worried at all;
That if us finding him at all had happened, nothing could stop us now.
Within two hours I had an offer from my dear friend, Vikki Lenox, saying simply that she has 7.5 empty acres in the next town, and “we can work something out.”
Vikki lives even closer to us.
Easier to get in and out.
We will be able to visit whenever we want with bags of apples, and his guilty pleasure: trimmings from the rose bush, thorns and all.
Nash will get to live his whole, underdog,
long-shot, against-all-odds life out.
No one had better tell me I can’t do something ever again now.
I followed leads, made phone calls, texted, posted, and begged, and tomorrow morning, when the sun comes up,
I’m getting back my cow.
All I can say is a weak and tired “Thank you” to every person who got involved.
The list is so long.
From the amazing Bob and Sheri show sharing the story, to people offering to donate funds,
and especially to Max Olvera from the Turlock Auction Yard.
Someone give that man a raise, and maybe even his own cow.
I might invite him to Thanksgiving for everything he’s done.
I go to bed tonight so humbled, grateful, and in awe of all the goodness left in the world.
Don’t let the media fool you.
The good is not all behind us.
There’s so much of it here right now.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
