The blowing snow and crushing windchill temperatures this week made Jerry Barton think about the last bad winter storm the region faced in late January when temperatures dipped below minus-50 degrees. That was the day he lost one of his best friends.

He found his Black Angus named Lucy on her side, barely breathing as the storm raged. He held her head as she passed.

“A lot of livestock ended up in the landfill that day,” he said.

To Barton, his wife Laura and neighbors, Lucy wasn’t just another cow. She was more like a black Lab, he said.

When Lucy was young, she lost her mother and needed special care. Her life would have been brief had Barton not stepped in to save her. It was the beginning of a long friendship that few understood. Family, friends and neighbors simply knew the octogenarian rancher loved Lucy and she seemed to love him.

Having been bottle fed, Lucy made friends with folks quickly. Growing up without a herd, she gravitated to Jerry for friendship and the two spent years passing the time playing ball, running the farm together and talking — sometimes for hours.

“Jerry is a talker,” Laura said. “And she talked back to him.”

While Laura is more of a horse, goat and chicken person, she was friends with Lucy as well. Few could resist her sweet demeanor.

“She was a little skittish of me because I'm not out there every morning and night like Jerry,” she said. “She’d come to me when I called her and she'd want a pat on the head.”

Occasionally Lucy would get out of her yard and head to nearby houses if she saw friends out there. She was well known, like a friendly farm pup, Jerry said. He provided Lucy with everything she needed, plus attending to her emotional needs. It took more than a year for the Bartons to bring in a couple more cows.

“She needed somebody else," Jerry said. "Cows aren't meant to be alone."

According to the part-time employee at Powell Valley Recycling, Lucy also helped him make sense of the world and became his therapist.

“She just wanted to listen. And she acted like she understood," Jerry said. "So, you know, that's all a therapist does."

He said he wants to put an ad in the Tribune to aid in his search for a new therapist.

“Now I’ll have to pay for my therapy,” he half joked.

Jerry wanted a small herd of cows. Lucy helped. She had several calves over the next 17 years and her calves had calves. He’d keep the cows and sell the bulls.

Lucy passed during this winter’s first nasty storm on Jan. 30. Jerry was devastated despite knowing she was well past her prime. According to Age Converter, an online calculator to determine the age of your pet in human years, Lucy would have been the equivalent of 78 — almost Jerry’s age if you believe in such calculations.

The Bartons have talked about moving to town. Argued is probably the more accurate word.

“Laura thinks we ought to move into town. I tell her I can't move into town. I’d feel too sorry for my new neighbors,” he said with a chuckle. “There's something about living out in the country. If I had to sell my cows and move into town, I think life wouldn't really be worth much.”

Jerry checked on the cows Wednesday morning, thinking of Lucy and her legacy. Fortunately, none were down but they weren’t in the mood to talk much. Lucy was one of a kind.