When I last left you, Nash had been found.
We anxiously awaited news that the truck carrying him had pulled into town.
After we received the text, we arranged to arrive on the ranch where he was being held the next morning early. I felt almost sick that night. I hardly slept.
It took some scrambling for what to do with him now that he couldn’t return to the original ranch.
It didn’t matter. He was coming back to us.
I guessed he could just come back here.
Back to the backyard of our duplex.
Back to him hearing us talking through our open screens and mooing to be fed.
It took several text messages and a trailer repair,
but last Wednesday morning, at 9:15am, we pulled down a long dirt road, clutching a stranger’s address, just hoping and praying it had actually been him.
It had to be. I felt it.
The text the night before from the long-haul trucker sent to fetch him had said only,
“I’m pretty sure I just loaded up your calf because he won’t stop licking me.”
That next morning, after a silent ride, toward the end of a dirt drive, a corral came into view,
and standing up against the gate looking out as if he’d just returned to the airport from Spring Break with an earring and a tattoo stood Nash.
He was covered in dirt, but we could tell it was him!
He had no idea all we had just gone through to find him.
The video I took of that moment shakes from my sobs as he comes into view.
The car had barely come to a full stop before Paige jumped out from the back seat running to him.
The moment he heard her voice calling his name he bellowed several loud, full-body moos.
The whole load-up and round of thank-yous to the truck driver and his family went by in a blur.
What I remember most was not knowing whether to cry, laugh, or let out a “Whoop!”
Before I even knew it, we were back on the road, the stress of the last several days evaporating like the fog that surrounded us, up over dry hills and through the next town towards Nash’s new home.
Unloading him was equally easy.
He practically burst through the trailer door, not even caring where we’d brought him, no doubt ready to be free of trailers, branding irons, and prodding;
Back to rose bush trimmings and crushed up apples,
back to being loved as one that had stood out,
just like he was before.
In exchange for being able to use my friend Vikki’s pasture, my dad had agreed to bring his crew to run a whole new fence along her property free of labor charges to her.
He would fix her broken tractor, dig some culverts, and haul out any junk that was there, too.
Vikki stood next to me with tears in her eyes.
I hugged her and told her this is the way a giving, loving chain works.
You put hood into the world, and it comes back to you.
She had been dreaming of reviving the property since her barn had burned down and her first husband had tragically died. The property had fallen in disrepair as she’d simply struggled to survive.
She spoke while looking out over the wheat blowing in the wind and Paige and my dad measured fence-lines about how she had always dreamed for life to be returned there,
and now it had.
The crews got to work the very next day.
They descended on the property like a swarm, measuring, digging, hauling old barbed-wire away;
And there’s something to be said about the sight of breaking up hardened ground.
We’ve heard voices telling us for days all the things that are impossible,
but I see forward to lush green fields, with sprays of wildflowers scattered around.
By the time I got home that day, I was contacted by the newspaper asking for an interview.
They had heard the story of the beloved family rescue steer mistakenly carted away, and really felt people would love, for once, to hear some news that was positive.
The very moment I got off the phone answering questions with that interview, I got contacted by a local TV news anchor for NBC wanting a live interview for the 10:00 news,
so the next morning I woke early and took some Rescue Remedy stress drops in an attempt to stop myself from my nervous shaking, pulled up Zoom on my computer with Paige sitting beside me, and logged on for Interview Part 2.
I had to cover my computer screen up with a book just to make it through that interview.
It’s one thing to write the story for people to read in the comforts of their own home.
It is very much another to wonder if they’re judging your smile or your seven year old clothes.
The news anchor said thank you, and I clicked the “X” so the zoom link would close.
I thought that was the end of it;
All tied up with a really sweet bow.
At the new ranch I had left supplies for Nash to last a few days until I could return, as the girls and I had planned to leave the very next day after his homecoming for our annual camping trip at the local KOA.
I changed from interview clothes to mismatched comfy ones and started packing the truck:
A return to usual.
But, as fate would have it, there was still more story to be told, because the next day as I stood in a camping cabin wondering where that smell was coming from,
a text came through.
It was from a news anchor for the CBS San Francisco news saying he knew I was busy, but
“Could you do a brief in-person interview today? We’ll happily come to you.”
So, on Thursday morning, dressed in my camping clothes, with nary an eyebrow pencil to be seen, I did my SECOND TV Nash the Steer interview in 24 hours.
I wonder what people thought as they walked by to get their camping ice and wood…
Me, positioned by a camera man in the eucalyptus grove,
big, puffy mic pinned to the neck of my ratty camp shirt.
Of course the teenagers just rolled their eyes at it all from where they sat by the pool, annoyed that I had anything going on in my life that didn’t directly fund, feed, or benefit them.
The news brought more people following the story, asking how to help.
My graphic designer friend made up some Nash art. His merch will soon be on sale.
He was getting lots of attention by the time the next day when I got the message that Vikki had noticed that Nash seemed to have fallen ill.
Apparently, cattle can catch pneumonia easily from experiencing lots of stress.
He was snotty nosed, and not eating, coughing hard, foaming at the mouth.
We left the KOA and went directly to him.
We sat beside him, petting his head that was laying limp in his grain bowl.
Paige cried for an hour sitting by his stall, worried over him.
I had a sunburn from sitting there by the time the emergency vet came.
Diagnosis: Upper respiratory infection.
No temperature, thankfully.
On the phone she had worried he’d need to be better restrained.
I assured her he was practically a puppy. He was that tame.
One powerful and very expensive shot, some oral probiotics, and a treatment game-plan later, and she was on her way.
I ruffled the top of his head and whispered, “We’ll be back, OK?”
The next morning texts from Vikki said he’d improved overnight drastically.
One misty-eyed, traumatized 10 year old breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Since that day, and through his journey so many people have gotten involved.
We started a gofundme for helping support his emergency vet, medication, and keeping costs.
A dear friend, giving a sizable donation, said only,
“I just want to be in the movie one day.”
I told him with that kind of generosity to a steer, if he wanted to, I would let him play ME.
A local PR rep contacted us and wants to make shirts with just the image of his new brand, and info on how to donate to support him on them.
As I talked about the ideas she had, and I looked at the brand, I couldn’t help but see that “U’ as a horseshoe, and read it as if it says, “Is Lucky” now.
In December, had you told me that so much would happen because of that little rescue calf my dad dropped off “for at least one night if you can,” I wouldn’t have believed you.
It feels like he has transformed nearly everything – our confidence levels, our relationships as a family, our local community, our faith in humanity, and now even a previously run-down piece of land.
The pasture feels almost electric, as if it knows something I don’t yet.
I’ve learned to trust that feeling, knowing that sometimes the best part of our story isn’t anywhere in the middle, but in the way it all worked out.
I don’t know if this story ends here.
Who knows? It might.
All I know now is that sometimes angels appear like orphan calves in black and white.
*To donate to help support Nash the Rescue Steer,
Please visit his gofundme at: https://gofund.me/d199e07a
Or contact Kerri Green on Facebook Messenger.
For more photos and videos of Nash’s journey and return, you can also follow “Nashimoo” on Instagram!
Thank you!
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.
