Being born is a traumatic experience! I remember...no, I guess I
don’t? It’s an amazing blessing that we can’t recall much about our
first days of existence.
That thought occurred to me as I stared
over the fence at the prettiest little heifer calf. She was red with a
white face and black eyelashes. Her mama was a black bally and the
previous owner says she’d been bred to a Simmental bull. Sure made a
dandy calf.
The week before I’d gone out to move my cows to new
grass. At my place that is not as simple as opening a gate. It’s more
like locking through the Panama Canal!
All the cows, save the
aforementioned black bally herinafter referred to as
SHE-WHO-BELLERS-THREATINGLY-AND-PAWS-THE-EARTH, were already through
gate #1. I was riding Coyote, so I rode up to push her up to the
others. She refused and it was then I noticed the new calf hidden in the
burdock. Dry, but less than a day old, I figgerd. Bluffing and dodging,
SHE-WHO- had taken her calf down to the creek, waded across it and hid
her in the weeds. She stood guard.
I spotted her. Coyote wouldn’t
cross the creek so I rode back and forth, flapping my arms wildly!
SHE-WHO- responded by pawing the mud! I dismounted, jumped the creek and
tried to get near the calf. I’d taken my rope, so I slapped at the calf
as SHE-WHO- formed a one-man ox ring around her baby.
Coyote
spooked and ran back to the corral! The calf spooked and ran over the
top of me right through my hot wire fence! I chased her afoot across the
big pasture, finally turning her back toward the creek which she
splashed across! Then she raced up the hill, through a 4-strand bob wire
fence and ducked down instinctively in the tall grass. I arrived
wheezing like a chronic lunger! I snuck up on her and put the rope
around her neck. She rose, bawling and crawled back through the bob wire
draggin’ me and 30 foot of rope!
I glanced back to see that SHE-WHO- had torn down my hot wire and joined us!...
Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment