GENTLEMAN FARMER- CATTLE CHAPTER, Part 2

The months went by and the calves grew fast.  They had plenty of good grass, hay, and I gave them grain every day.  Nancy and I learned some things that we never thought about being needed before.....  Nancy, you hold up his tail while I put this rubber band thing on him.  Watch out cause he ain't going to like it!  We treated pink eye, learned how to drench a steer, and generally became at ease with them even thought they weighted hundreds of pounds each.  

Yes they were steers now but still could be petted like a puppy.  The boys had asked all along if they could ride them and I always told them that I thought that they were still too small but one day Billy asked to ride them and I said, go ahead, they were old enough.  Billy looked at the steers and said, well, maybe not today.  I never saw it but I found out that they did ride them and some of their cousins did too.  As far as I know nobody ever got hurt.

I was working in the pasture one day and had brought the tractor and trailer up for something and I heard a ripping sound.  One of the steers had ripped the seat cover off of the tractor.  After that I left things outside of the pasture that were not needed right then.

Spring had come and we were tilling the garden.  I was throwing the remains of collards, turnips, etc over the fence to the steers and they were eating it like candy.  Genius that I am, I thought why pull the plant remains for them, I'll just hook them up to a log and let them drag it around while they feed themselves.  How far can they go with a log chained to their neck.  I thought that I was so smart to think of that and save me all that effort.  Yep, you're right, don't ever do that.  You show them the world outside of the pasture and all the good stuff to eat in the outside world and for some reason they don't want to stay in the pasture anymore.

Then the tilling was finished and we were ready to plant the garden and they didn't understand why they weren't being let out now.  They would find any weak place and get out.  They were a year old now and pretty big animals.  Lucky they didn't know how much stronger they were than us because if we ever got a rope on them they would allow us to lead them back to the pasture and we could attempt to plug up how they got out.

We had a neighbor who was deathly afraid of the critters and when they got out that was where they headed.  We would get a call that they were out and eating her flowers again.  We would grab a few ropes and go get them.  As time went on they got smarter and we didn't and they were harder to catch.

Nancy and I were home alone one day and they were out again.  I had a good nylon rope but Nancy only had a small plastic cloths line.  The plan was for Nancy to distract the cow while I rope him.  Nancy talked sweet to him while I questioned his parentage and said a few unkind things to him and Nancy got close enough to put the clothesline rope on him.  He then realized that he was caught and started to run.  Nancy ran with him, he ran on one side of a telephone pole and Nancy ran on the other and she held on to that line.  She had rope burn on her hands but she held on.  Yep, I still say "yes mam" to her.

Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.
Ayn Rand