03/15/05, 08:49 PM
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Join Date: May 2002
Location: ohio
Posts: 143
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Seeping Springs Crytal Ball a memorial
Ok folks ... gonna get maudlin here
Today Crytal passed on, i know i said that we were going to help her along to that end , but out of all the 5 people in this family no one could do it ... not even dial the fone for teh vet to come and do it ...
She wasnt in pain, as far as we could tell. She was perky and responsive right up to the end , she died on her own in the night head curled up naturally
she ate and drank with gusto even her last feeding ...
she turned her head to look at you when you called her name ...
Let me tell you about crytals career
she came to us by auction at the Keystone in Penna as a yearling..
At three she had her first calf .. at the Berea Fair , in Cleveland .. and although we shut the aisle down so she wasnt to disturbed there were probably 200 people watching her calve , teh good majority were other cattlemen ( what is it about a cow giving birth that even tired old cattlemen jsut have to watch !!!! ) she even had a film crew for one of the local news programs , and updates on her progress went to teh fair office hourly ... sheesh its not as if a cow hasnt ever calved at the fair before ....
she had a heifer
After that she seemed to be destined as the cow ambassador , she attended the ribbon cutting ceremony there every year till last year .. and at another fair she started her career as the pie eating cow , winning fame in several newspapwers (small pies .. nothing to get her tummy in a rumble about .. and after the first year we put her into training for several weeks before the fair circuit with donuts )
the following year she also entered the pie eating contest at berea and won hands down .. I think she has more rosettes from her pie eating career than her show career!!!
She was always the gentlest calmest cow in teh string , I could take her up to the midways and walk her right through all the comotion and she would turn nary a hair .. she was a queen and she new it and acted it ... pet me stroke me scratch behind my horns , becaue I deserve it .. I am the queen ..
You could see it in her eyes ..
So many young children under the age of six used her for peewee showmanship .. the youngest was my daughter at age three ... at a show in McHenry Maryland ... my daughter wasnt as tall as the underside of crystals belly .. never figured who led who .. crystal had been in the show ring so many times she just did her stuff ...my daughter toddling proudly at her side .. or there abouts ,
when inner city school groups would attend the fair , it was crytal I pulled out of the string for them to pet .. some of these children never in their lives had been this close to a cow .. let alone pet adn scratch one , or be given a comb to comb out her luxurious red hair ..feel her horns .. how warm they were look into her eyes , or have a cows tounge lick their arm ...
crytal was part of many impromtu petting zoos for church groups ... and for a few years was the cow for one of the live nativitys in In town
she has had her pic in the news far to many times to count ..
You could stand at teh fence and call her name .. and she would come running .. or look at you and give you that look with her eyes .. hey i hear you , but i am royalty , who am i to come when you becken .. as the mood took her
How many times at a fair have I lay down in the clean straw next to crytle leaning up aginst her nice warm side snoozing as the day wore on ..
we kept her last heifer calf she will be a two year old this summer .. her Name is Nancy, she has a legacy to carry on ... she will get her first donut this spring .. last summer she spent most of one fair in teh cattlemen assc pen on exibit as a breed example ..
Now do not think any of us would have allowed Crytal to suffer one bit .. at teh first sign of that .. i know I would have been the first one out there with the gun .. but she was the queen till the end accepting ony what was her due !!!
so here is to Seeping Springs Crytal Ball a Grande old Lady
May she have lots of pies and donuts and many hands to brush and comb her where ever she is !!!!
I Told you I was going to get maudlin and very unprofessional !!!
Paula
Hyde Park Farm
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