Soapweed's Ranch
Ramblings |
We were nearing the end of another strenuous calving season a few years ago.
My hired hand spent an evening at the local watering hole and came home with
this story of happenings on a neighboring ranch. I shall change the names to
protect the innocent.
Charlie ran a good outfit, with the help of his two sons, George and Fred. They
were calving out a big bunch of cows and feeding a lot of hay, as the grass was
covered with snow. Calving started in late February and carried on until early
May. Charlie was doing most of the hay feeding with a good-sized front-wheel
assist tractor and a stack-mover equipped with a hydra-fork to feed off the seven-ton
stacks of hay. George was in charge of the day-time calving, and Fred was baby-sitting
the cows during the night-time hours. Things were rolling along fairly smoothly,
as these fellows are all top hands. Quite a bunch of the cows were Chianina-cross
two-year-old first-calf heifers, and they have the reputation of being just a
little bit "woofier" than your average run-of-the-mill bovine. Any cow that gave
the boys extra trouble for any reason was getting the lower switch of the tail
bobbed off, a sign that she would be in the selling bunch. Charlie mentioned
to his boys that they were being a little hard on the young cows in this respect. "Give
them a chance, they are just first-calf heifers and should all make good cows."
The season was starting to wear on all the participants, as it tends to do every
year. Charlie decided to give Fred a chance to catch up on a little shut-eye,
so volunteered to take part of the night duty one evening. Fred was to sleep
the first half of the night and then relieve Charlie at 2 a.m. Fred's alarm went
off at the apppointed hour, and he bundled up in his warm clothes to go to the
calving lot and relieve his dad. As he left the house, he could hear quite a
commotion going on in the calving barn. There was a lot of clangin' and bangin'
and a few choice words were occasionally heard. Normally it didn't take too long
to walk from the house to the barn, but with the extra-curricular noises in evidence,
Fred kinda drug out the process. Just as he arrived at the barn and peaked around
the door-way, Charlied slammed the head-catch on the calf-pulling chute. "Gottcha!
You old rip!" Charlie's horse was standing outside the barn with two 30-foot
lariat ropes tied together to make enough length to go around a couple corners.
The horse was necessary to pull the cow into the stanchion.
Charlie didn't see Fred standing in the shadows of the door-way. Before he even
attempted to pull the calf, he procured his jack-knife and whacked off the lower
portion of the tail switch. Fred couldn't resist. "Gosh, Dad, let's give her
a chance. She's just a first-calf heifer, and should make a good cow." If looks
could kill.
Copyright © 2005 Steve
Moreland
All Rights Reserved