Anything smaller than a sledgehammer or lighter than a house jack has probably been lost at least once on this place. I might have even lost the sledgehammer once, but the grass was tall that year.
So it makes you wonder why I’d trust myself with something as small as a calving book that has so much important and irreplaceable information written down in it.
It also makes you question why anyone would let me walk out of a store with a tiny, expensive handheld communications device.
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I guess the reason the store lets me leave with one of their phones is because whether the phone is lost or found, the bill still comes once a month for the life of the contract. And the value of the phone is all on my shoulders unless I take out their insurance for $10 a month.
I don’t know anyone offering insurance on calving books, I suppose because it’s hard to nail down a tangible value. I get the book for free from either a vet clinic or a feed dealer, but by the end of the year the numbers and words I scratched down inside of it are infinitely more valuable.
At its core, insurance is simple: everybody pays, some collect and some don’t, but everyone gets a peace of mind.
I had insurance once on my phone. It escaped from my coveralls when I was out feeding cattle, never to be seen again. The insurance worked and I got a replacement phone that was exactly like the antique one I lost that was out receiving calls underneath the hoof of some cow.
Statistically, I figured I’d carried enough insurance and didn’t renew the plan. What were the odds I’d need it again?
Honestly, I haven’t lost another phone, at least not for more than a few terror stricken days. But lately I am wondering if I should renew the protection plan.
Last week, I was cleaning out the water tanks and fixing the floats and valves, doing a lot of bending over and darned near standing on my head from time to time. So you’d wonder why a person would put important stuff in open-topped pockets without so much as a flap or a snap or a safety pin. I skirted tragedy when my cellphone plopped out a couple times, but it was retrieved and maintained working order.
But a few hours into the day I couldn’t find my calving book. It was in the open-topped pocket of the vest I was wearing that morning.
Like we tell our kids to do, I retraced my steps. Nothing. I stewed about it all day and just before dark I looked again. There in the muck I saw a glimmer of red. I turned a few cartwheels of glee on the way to retrieve my soggy but safe calving book.
I suppose I should start logging all my important facts and figures electronically and upload them to some cloud I hear tell of to keep them safe. Either that, or I should poke a safety pin through the top of that vest pocket.
Ryan Taylor is a rancher, writer and senator in the state legislature from Towner, North
Dakota.
