Another excerpt from Canterbury Characters,
The farm Bucky Burroughs rented in R.I. was getting too small for his herd, so when a cattle dealer who lived down the road mentioned a farm being for sale in Canterbury, Bucky went over to take a look.
He ended up buying Carl Viet’s farm on Barstow Road, as Carl was moving to a larger, stone-free farm in upper state New York. So, in 1970 the Burroughs brothers moved to Canterbury, bringing their mother with them.
While hauling the rest of their silage from R.I. to their new farm in Canterbury, Elliot got two flat tires on his truck down on route 14. He didn’t know who to call for help so contacted Dave Viet, who told him to call Max Wibberley. Max came right down and fixed the flats. By now Bucky was there and told Max, “We don’t have any money!”
“Well,” Max relied, “You’re moving into town, not out, right? Pay me when you can!”
Bucky learned to be an artificial breeder, both for his own cows and for other farmers’ cows. He also learned to take care of his herd’s health needs, delivering all the calves, giving intravenous treatments and castrating the bull calves for himself and other farmers.
One time when Bucky was away on an errand, a cow was having a hard time calving, so George and Elliot called the vet, Dr. Sherman. He came but was unable to get the calf out. When Bucky got home, Dr. Sherman said to him, “Here you take a try at this one.” Bucky was able to turn the calf’s legs and arrange them so he and Dr. Sherman could together pull the calf out backwards.
Dr. Sherman remembered that and one day he called Bucky, saying he was in R.I. and wondered if Bucky could help another farmer in Canterbury whose newly calved cow had cast her withers (meaning her uterus had come out after calving). Bucky used the bottom end of a big coke bottle to push it back in so as not to make any tears in its delicate membrane, then sewed her up using his jack knife and strips of cloth from the farmer’s tee shirt. After that Dr. Sherman often called Bucky to deliver calves when he was too busy.
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