Some Time

Updated September 1, 2026

He is only one week old, a black-and-white Friesian calf born into a system that had already written his obituary.

For in the logic of the dairy industry, being born male can be a fatal error: he will never produce milk and he will not grow quickly enough to be considered profitable for beef.

His life was meant to be measured in hours, not years.

Whether through a difficult birth or by nature, we are not yet sure, he is blind or, at best, temporarily so. Only time and care will reveal what lies ahead. And so he entered a world he could not see and was never expected to remain in for long.

Yet, somewhere within that darkness, someone saw him.

And saw a life worth saving.

We were nervous about taking him on, for dear Babe has taught us the reality of such kindness. While caring for a blind bovine may seem manageable when they are a 30-kilogram bundle of confusion, soft fur and raspy tongue, it can become a monumental challenge when that calf grows into a 300 to 500-kilogram steer who cannot see fence lines, gateways or the world around him.

But Babe showed us it was possible, and so we said yes.

Because sometimes, you simply must do what kindness asks of you.

When the little fellow was lovingly surrendered, a container of his mother’s milk came with him.

Let that sit for a moment.

That milk is the final physical tether to a mumma he could not see, but whose warmth, scent and presence he surely knew. And as we prepare to feed him that last little bit of her, we cannot help but think of the body that made it especially for him.

And of a bond severed before either had any say. He would have been the apple of her eye, even if only for a few fleeting hours.

We hope that somehow, in a universe of possibilities, his mumma knows he is safe. Yet the painful truth is that she likely watched him being taken away, just as she would have watched calves taken before him, never knowing whether he lived or died.

Upon his head is a perfect white heart.

Absolutely perfect.

Perhaps it is there to remind us that perfection does not always lie in form.

Sometimes it lies in deeds.

In what we choose to do once we understand that the true cost of milk is measured not only in what is taken, but in who.

We have called him Some Time.

Because sometimes kindness begins by seeing the life behind the milk. And giving a sweet little calf the one thing he was never meant to have.

Time.