Today I continue my quest in creating and posting one block a day of the fabulous That Town And Country Quilt by the lovely Susan-Claire Mayfield. This is day two hundred and ninety-eight of that project.

This quilt block shows two cows standing in the grass. The bottom of the block has a jagged cut piece of green fabric indicating the grass. On the right is a large Highlander cow with fur covering the front of her brown face. Next to her and a bit behind her is a much lighter orange-yellow calf that is half her height. It looks a bit like a teddy bear. The cow and calf are detailed with appropriately colored pen markings. — Click To Enlarge

Here are Josie and Ben.

Highlander cows are traditionally excellent mothers and can calve on their own 95% of the time. We rarely ever have a problem with cows and their calves, but these two had a bit of bad luck this year.

Ben’s mother, Button, did not want to be a mother and tried to kill Ben. (Very rare.)

Josie’s calf was stillborn a couple of days later. So Josie and Ben formed a new family.

It is so much fun to see the baby calves in the spring because they’re so cute. They look like little teddy bears bouncing around the field.

One or more cows will often be designated as babysitters while their mothers go out to graze further away.

We had a successful calving season. We have red, black, champagne, and brindle-colored cows and calves.

One of the things we have to watch out for is dogs that owners will allow to run in with the cows. When the calves are tiny, all their energy can be depleted from being chased. Their energy stores are so fragile they sometimes can’t recover and perish.

We watch them very carefully.