Take a Cow to School Day

"Mama! Plee-aa-se!!  You promised!"


My daughter looked into the pleading eyes of her youngest daughter and knew a sinking feeling in her heart.  She had promised.  Rashly. Months ago, when the tiny, little miniature Herford had been born.  Small, even for the small breed, he had soon become a pet around the barn.  He displayed a calm, cheerful acceptance of life that didn't change as he started to grow.  Bigger animals pushed him away from the feed pan, he would just placidly move to another one.  He greeted every visitor to the barn with his head stuck up to the gate for a little head rub and a scratch.  He was a sweetheart.


And she had promised.  "But, honey," she responded to the plea, "Your daddy is in the middle of harvest and you know we would need his help."  Now harvest is serious.  The little girl knew her daddy was in the field from early morning to late at night.  The only time he wasn't was when the weather kept him from it.  Naturally, the weather looked to be perfect for the next week. 


"But you promised!!!!" she pleaded again.  "Conner is going to his new home next week!  It has to be NOW!!"  Conner, the little Herford. was indeed sold to two little girls who would be loving him and showing him next season.


"Ok", her mother sighed, "We'll talk to your daddy and see what we can work out, but it may not be possible."


Sunshine came out with her smile, as she gleefully ran to the barn to catch her daddy before he got away.  He didn't have a chance.  Conner was going to school!


I guess "Show and Tell" is a little different in rural areas.


After showing cattle successfully for a couple of years, she wanted to "show" and "tell" her classmates about the experience.  Of course, you need a cow (or in this case a steer) to demonstrate all the finer points of getting prepared for a cattle show.  So the gentle little animal was the perfect choice for this adventure.


So early the next morning, Conner walked calmly into the cattle trailer (he couldn't exactly ride the school bus) and went to school.  He walked out sedately into the parking lot and looked inquisitively at the children waiting for him.  His young mistress, grabbed her bucket of grooming supplies and her notes and proudly proceeded to instruct her classmates on the art of preparing a calf for the show ring.  She explained the early morning feedings before school, the careful feed ration that would make his coat gleam and his muscles grow, the time spent teaching him to walk with a halter and stand still for the judge, the baths to keep him clean and shiny.  She told of the chores that she and her sister did before after school to keep their cattle stalls clean and them fed and watered.


Then her daddy stepped forward and explained that just like children needed vitamins cattle needed supplements and vitamins too.  Then he showed them how you used a tool to get a cow to swallow a pill.  Also, like children, cattle needed to get vaccinations and sometimes medicine with an injection, with a special syringe that would let him do it quickly.


The children were spellbound.  Conner was ecstatic, as the class gently took turns giving him a head rub and a scratch.


The teacher approached my daughter and son-in-law to thank them for a very special morning.  "I am so impressed", she added, "with how much Kinsey knows about cattle and showing.  She really did a great job." 


"Yes." her mother agreed, "She works hard with her cattle and she truly loves it"  To herself, she added, "and maybe you can understand why sometimes her homework is hurried and a little messy !"

Super Shocker, the Bull

I have spent most of my adult life with cows.  Other than a few years in college, we have just about always had a field of cows somewhere.  We had our first farm in the BK (before kids) years when we were both still trying to get the hang of being adults. Back then, when Hubby had his week-end drills or two week summer camp for his Guard duty, my main job during his absence was to count the cows and be sure they were all there.  Simple enough.  Except that I never came up with the same number of cows twice, so I would keep going back and counting again, and again, and again.  Finally, during one of our infrequent phone calls, (no constant communication via cell phones then) he exclaimed over my inability to get a consistent count on the cows, "Just count the legs and divide by four!!"


Time has passed and I have learned a lot more about cattle over the years.  However, I find that they can still amaze and amuse me.


The front field, right now, is home to a group of teen-aged bulls.  It's a lot like having teen-aged boys around.  They are constantly causing mischief and tearing up things.  They also tend to entertain themselves with testing their muscles and throwing their weight around by pushing and shoving each other.  (Which usually leads to tearing up things and causing mischief.)  Consequently, I spend a lot of time watching them butt heads together and push each other around the lot, until one gives in. 


Since he wasn't needed right now, the old herd bull had been included in the lot with the teen-agers.  Eventually, all the youngsters would try their strength against the old bull.  He would tolerate their pushing and butting with relatively good grace until he got tired of it.  Then he would tighten his powerful shoulders and gradually drive them back until the youngster would give in and trot off. 


One of the youngsters was unusually persistent, refusing to give in and break off the mock battle.  The old bull just kept pushing, with the young bull losing ground step by step, but never giving in.  Gradually, they crossed the field, one pushing and one retreating little by little, until they reached a corner.  Now, Hubby had cordoned off this corner, to keep the bulls from some equipment temporarily stored there, by stretching a piece of electric fence wire across the area.  The bulls approached the corner inch by inch, heads locked together, until the younger bull was pushed, butt first,  into the electric fence.  Expecting a show, when I saw the young bull react to the electricity, I was surprised instead to see the old bull throw his head up and bellow in shock.  He shook his head in disbelief then turned and trotted off across the grass.  It seemed the electricity had harmlessly passed through the young bull and then thoroughly shocked the old bull.


I thought this just an amusing example of livestock lore until several nights later when I was watching the bulls come up to the feed trough for supper.  They all rushed in pushing, shoving and grabbing feed, like they weren't fed every day and were dying of starvation.  Normally, the old bull wades into his position at the trough and ignores the rowdiness of the youngsters, who seem to know to leave him out of the action.  Then I noticed that as one of the youngsters came up next to him, he pulled out of his spot and moved away from the trough.  He then resumed eating at another spot.   Over the next several days, I noticed this same behavior repeated at each feeding.  It took me a while to realize that he was moving away from the same young bull each time.


With a giggle and a laugh I figured it out.  He was making sure that the young bull he had pushed into the fence didn't get near him.  He didn't know what had happened but he knew he didn't want anything to do with that super charged kid again! 


Score one for Super Shocker!!

A Load of Manure

I love living on a farm.  There is a never ending string of improbable, unlikely, and never-ending stories swirling around me most of the time.  Take the other day.....


I came in the other day to discover Hubby missing.  I had left for the afternoon with Hubby working on cleaning out the feed barn.  The feed barn is a blessing and a curse.  It is a large, open sided barn with a concrete floor.  By feeding the cattle in this area it keeps them from milling around the hay bale and churning the mud into a deep quagmire in the field.  It also tends to keep the majority of the manure in one place.  The floor is periodically scraped of the collection of manure and piled on one end of the barn.  Then, when the pile becomes unmanageable, it is loaded onto a piece of equipment to spread it over the fields for fertilizer.  This spreader looks a lot like a wagon with short sides with a set of rotating blades on the back.  The blades literally grab the manure and throw it off the end of the wagon.  Same basic design since they were horse-drawn.


Although I couldn't see him I just assumed he was still working on spreading the manure.


Some time later he called.  "I'm on my way home." he declared.  "From where?" I asked hesitantly.  "Mack's.  I have to finish this load.  I'll be late getting in for supper."


Feeling puzzled, I tried to translate his cryptic message.  "Mack" referred to a friend who had a welding shop in town.  Hubby often stopped in to visit but I couldn't figure out why he went without finishing his chore.


Later, when a tired, dirty, not very fresh smelling husband came in to eat I got the whole story 


It seemed that during the afternoon he had managed to break the belt that turned the spreading part of his wagon.  After spending some time crawling under the wagon and struggling with the mechanics he just couldn't figure how to get the thing back together.  "So what did you do?" I asked.  "Well, I figured if anyone know how to fix this it would be Mack.  He can put about anything together."  "Did Mack know?" I queried.  "Well, not at first but he just took out this bolt and that bolt then it all came apart.  Then he know exactly what to do."  "So, Mack came out to help you", I asked, still mostly lost in the narrative.  "No, I had to take it to his shop."


"You what?"  I gasped.  "Don't tell me," I choked on a giggle, "you drove a wagon load of manure to town and through town to Mack's shop?!!"  "Well sure, how else was I going to get it there?"  By now I was in all out laughter.  Visions of my farmer calmly hauling a whole load of manure past businesses and homes to get it fixed then hauling it home again filled my head.  Hubby just looked at me in disbelief.  To him his actions were perfectly normal.


Considering the lumps I saw going up and down my driveway that had fallen from the spreader, I have a feeling the roadsides will be well fertilized next spring (and maybe a few yards along the way, too.) 


It could have been worse....it wasn't really, really fresh manure.


At least he didn't decide to work on it outside my Kitchen Window!