Uh huh, sure he did. I believe you.
By Julie Carter
I
offer a caveat for the following story by saying "as it was told to me"
simply because, while the source is quite reliable, the story itself is
so wild your first instinct will be "that's a lie."
This is one of those "you gotta hear this one" stories.
Greg
and Nancy headed out, stock trailer in tow, to get a neighbor's
pink-eyed yearling (that's a young calf with a bacterial eye affliction
that can eventually cause blindness) out of their pasture.
They
didn't have a real plan of any kind but they also didn't take a horse.
The calf was so blind they figured they could sneak up on him and "coax"
him into the trailer.
The neighbor the critter belonged to
didn't know how to rope and Greg was still nursing his $27,000 and
counting shoulder surgery. So Nancy was the designated roper.
Her plan was a simple one. Just rope the calf and let the rope go. No problem.
She
eased up on him and surprisingly, even to her, caught him with the
first loop. He was blind enough he didn't go very far; at least until
the young overly-enthusiastic neighbor ran to pick up the rope and
spooked the calf.
The blind calf, now wearing Nancy's rope and
towing the neighbor, ran off with the rest of the cows to the other end
of the pasture. Reaching warp speed rather quickly, the neighbor finally
had to turn loose of the rope.
The calf, still on the run,
made a big circle through the cows. Running and stumbling, he was more
afraid of the rope than anything else. It was a monster he couldn't see
but knew it was following him.
The calf appeared to be headed
home to his proper pasture but then he circled and headed back toward
the cowboy crew standing at the trailer watching all this unfold.
Nancy
made what at the time seemed like a smart-alecky comment, "Let's just
open the trailer gate and maybe he'll load up on his own. He looks like
he's heading right for it."
Still in joking mode, she moved to
the end of the trailer and unlatched the trailer gate. The calf was
still coming and at a pretty fast clip. She threw the gate back just in
time for the calf to jump into the trailer.
They were all
laughing very hard at that point. Nancy began claiming "Top Hand" honors
when they realized someone probably ought to close the trailer gate.
That
done, they were still in shock at the sight they had witnessed and were
glad there were three of them to attest to it. Of course, then the
discussion of where the credit was due began. Greg was sure he should
have all the honors because he positioned the trailer just right on the
road.
The neighbor claimed accolades for running the calf fast
enough and far enough for him to circle back to the trailer and get in
it with considerable momentum.
This exciting adventure took
about half an hour and nobody had to unsaddle horses when they got home.
It seems like if a day was going that well, they should have gone on to
town and bought up some lottery tickets.
Telling that story to
some poor west Texas winter wheat pasture puncher who is wearing an
entire dry goods store on his back could elicit a violent reaction.
It's
been my experience that any complaining done about the difficulty of
loading sick cattle in a trailer brought, not ever, the highly unlikely
moment of a critter loading by himself.
It did get me a new trailer ball welded to the top rail of the trailer to dally a rope around for leverage.
Not everybody can be a "top hand." I'm glad I at least know a few.
© Julie Carter 2006
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment