May your bulls be satisfied and your heifers pregnant,
~Richelle
Let’s talk cows. Bulls and heifers, to be more exact. Obviously these animals are a necessary evil on any working ranch, because it is pretty hard to keep your herd numbers up without them. Unless you AI everything, you are bound to have a bull or two hanging around, being obnoxious and just waiting to tear stuff up. Being only of any real use about 60 days out of the year, the trick is trying to figure out how to keep them out of trouble the other three hundred and five. One is bad enough, but rarely is there just one bull residing on the place at any given time. Like any man, they have to constantly prove they are worthy contenders for the attention from the female species. Unlike men though, they don’t have fists to pound the crap out of the other guys sniffing around their girls; but I suspect that is why the good Lord made them so massive. If you think two thousand pounds of beef can’t move very quickly, just try cutting one out of a herd of cows. Not only are they fast, but they know they are big and they will take the shortest route from point A to B, regardless of who or what is in their way. When two or more bulls decide they want to fight, they can brawl better than any drunk football players; you just have to hope you are out of the way and there is a lot of room between them and the fence. Not necessarily ones to appreciate a horse trying to crawl up their butt to keep them moving either, if given the opportunity, a bull will brush up in the trees faster than the takeoff of a 747 jet airliner. And, like most men, they take their sweet-ass time to go everywhere except where you want them to go. Typical. God has a funny sense of humor, therefore he also created the heifer. Like any young group of girls, heifers are curious and full of sass… while cute at first, they become a major pain in the ass anytime you are trying to accomplish something while they are around. Like a band of sheep, if you have one heifer that finds a hole in the fence, the rest will shortly follow her. Instead of moving out when you and your trusty steed try to round them up and push them into another field, they circle around and soon you find yourself with a nice little string of little shits that would rather play ring around the rosy with your horse than go where you have intended for them to go. As long as you aren’t trying to move them around, chances are they could be a mile away and the minute you ride into the field, they will flock to you like gulls in a dumpster. But beware that if you try to push them to do anything, they will probably scatter like shotgun pellets in a tornado. The measure of a cowboy or cowgirl is not always how well they ride; it is, more or less, how well they can think like a bull or a heifer. How you can prevent a catastrophic event by being at the right place at the right time, being able to read their irritating little minds, and how well you can coerce your livestock into thinking it is their choice to move to greener pastures. No matter what, you can bet that working with either critter is going to make for an interesting day.
May your bulls be satisfied and your heifers pregnant, ~Richelle
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AuthorHi, I am Richelle. I am a mother to two wild and crazy little cowgirls, a wife and friend to pretty awesome cowboy, and a lover of all things western. This is just my collection of my own observations of life, some of my photos, and a few recipes here and there. I hope you enjoy! Categories
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