In this column I have often mentioned
scours, abscesses, big tits, bad bags, cancer eyes, foot rot, slurry
pits, afterbirth, retained placenta, castration, heat cycles, sheep
pellets and snotty noses.
Over the years I have received the occasional letter castigating me for talkin’ dirty.
It
is never my intention to offend the sensibilities of my readers. My
poems and stories are always written with the idea that people who read
them regularly are livestock people. In real life I’m not comfortable
cussing or telling blue stories in mixed company and I’m no different
writin’ this column.
So,
if I’m talkin’ to a cattlewoman I assume she knows what bull semen is.
That she has had scourin’ calves in her house and knows what it means
when someone says it’s rainin’ like a cow peein’ on a flat rock. Those
subjects are part of her lifestyle. I feel no need to ask her to leave
if I’m doing a rectal exam on a cow.
Farm
kids are the best example. They are what we have taught them and what
they have experienced. Fifteen years old who are learning to
artificially inseminate learn the proper words for the anatomy involved.
Uterus had never been a dirty word to them.
Children
on a dairy farm learn to spot cows that are in heat. Washing the bag or
tit dip does send them into fits of teenage giggling.
Helping
a newborn get his first meal is not a titillating experience. Mucking
out the horse barn is hard work but it’s not ‘ooky’!
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