The Veterinarian Came to Kjettestorp

Now maybe I’ll tell some funny stories about the vet. Our vet wasn’t anything like James Herriot but funny things did happen. All the time there were new rules and regulations, just like today. The rule came that all cows had to have a small sign above their stall, like small blackboard. On that sign, it was supposed to say the cow’s name, the day it was born, when she had her last calf and when she was bred. If she was the daughter of another cow in the herd, then the mother’s name needed to be on there. Our cows had names like Vesta and Rose and Brunella. Well, this was no problem for Papa. He was always orderly so the signs over our cows were always up to date. Some farmers had a bit of a difficult time with this rule; some couldn’t read and write very well and such.

Well, the old vet was pretty easy going on the farmers; he knew their cows and their history. Then he retired and a new vet came. He was named Ankarklo. He was pretty stuffy and thought he was a little better than the rest.

I found this photo of "Veterinär Nils Ankarklo"

on kindabild.se. The caption there says

he was the vet in Kisa from 1935-1959.

One day he was going to vaccinate cows at Fredricks i Gräsvederna. He didn’t have any signs up; he hadn’t gotten around to that yet. The vet asked, “What is the name of this cow?” “Oh that’s Rulla,” Fredricks said. Then they got to the next cow. “What’s the name of this cow?” Fredricks said, “Well that is Big Rulla.” The vet said, “Ok.” Then they got to the next cow and the vet asked his question. Fredricks answered, “Well, that is Little Rulla.” The vet sort of shook his head but wrote it down. When they got to the fourth cow, the vet asked again and Fredricks said, “Oh now that is the real Rulla.” I can imagine the vet sputtering at this point.

There were times when he came to our place too and put Mama down a couple of times. Once he brought along his red-haired little girl; he called her Kikan. Mama brought up a basket of pears that were ripe at that time and gave one to Kikan. When the vet was done and came out of the barn, he wanted a

Here is Veterinarian Ankarklo with his
daughters :) 

pear too. He happened to get ahold of one that I guess had been dropped on the ground because it was a little soft in one spot. He said to Mama, “How dare you give my daughter rotten pears!” Mama got a little angry and said, “For your information, the pears are not rotten and if they’re good enough for my children, they’re good enough for your’s too!” After that she refused to go to the barn if the vet was there.

So one time there was a cow and she’d had a calf and she didn’t get rid of the afterbirth. That couldn’t wait more than a few days. Dad called the vet but he didn’t come and didn’t come, and Dad had to go to a meeting in Kisa so there I was left to go to the barn when the vet came. He looked at me and asked, “Var är Papa?” (“Where is Papa?”)

I said he was in Kisa at a meeting.

“Var är Mama?”

I said she was in the kitchen.

“Well what are you doing here?”

“I was going to show you the cow.”

“Aw-o. Show it to me then.”

So I took him in the barn and showed him the cow.

He said, “That cow has thrown her calf!” (Cows sometimes got some kind of disease that made them have their calves too early and often the calves were dead when they were born. People were kind of afraid of this disease.)

I said, “No she has not.”

“How do you know?”

“I can show you the calf.” I showed him the calf and it was plain it was only about a day old, so he gave in.

The next time he came to our place, he asked Papa, “Where is that girl who was here last time. I like to talk to her. She has spunk.” Papa asked me later what I had said to him and said I had done a good job. I was thinking that it wasn’t so much spunk as it was that I was afraid of him.