Driving a Dead Cow
©Ken Harris, 2008
It was a dark and stormy winter afternoon in the 1990s in North San Juan, California. One of our short-yearling steers lay dead in the mud, stiff and ungainly. This was a disagreeable event at a disagreeable time in a disagreeable place.
Our “ranch” lay on two horizontal planes joined by five hundred feet or so of more or less 45ยบ real estate. On the upper plane sat our house, on the lower plane a pasture and a seasonal stream. In between, on a bulldozer enhanced level patch of ground, sat our barns and a fattening pen, protected by large madrone and bull pine trees and lots of manzanita and Scotch broom brush. But the trees and brush didn’t offer sufficient protection, for the steer lay dead in the field of mud we called our fattening pen. Joanne, Bill Brown, a man whom we occasionally hired to help us do grunt work, and I glumly surveyed the scene as the rain whipped in our faces and dripped down the backs of our slickers.
We had to figure out what to do with this large, dead animal. We couldn’t just leave him there for the coyotes, buzzards, flies and microbes. The carcass would perfume the valley for weeks.
We had to get him out of his mud puddle and off to some place where we could bury him. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get our 4-wheel drive pick-up anywhere near the carcass without taking out a side of the fattening pen and driving on serious mud. Even if we took out the side of the pen, mud driving is a minor art form in itself. From a previous experience I knew that chains just dig you in deeper and faster.
At last we came up with a plan. Bill and I tied two long ropes around the dead steer’s head and then the three of us rolled the carcass onto its back and pointed it in the direction of the entrance to the fattening pen. Then Bill and I looped our ropes over our chests and arms and began tugging like two mules breaking sod. Joanne stood behind with a hind hoof in each hand, like a pioneer woman gripping plough handles, keeping the steer on its back and giving some direction to our efforts. She steered as Bill and I strained, hopping the steer’s head wouldn’t pop off before we got to where we could attach him to the pick-up.
Success! We got a whole carcass all the way to the pick-up. The rain and wind were just as bad, but my arms were so sore I didn’t even notice. We towed the animal downhill to the level pasture and Bill and I grabbed shovels. Seems you never have a backhoe when you need one.
Of course we had to bury the animal. We couldn’t cut it up for steaks and ribs because we didn’t know why it had died, basic knowledge you really want to have about your food.
Showing posts with label cows. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cows. Show all posts
Monday, July 14, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Birth and Other Inconveniences
On Birth and Other Inconveniences of Life’
©Ken Harris, 2007
Puppies, guppies and other wildlife young were not occasions for great comment in our family. Someone was always whelping, calving, littering or otherwise inconveniencing themselves. Doesn’t everyone hatch chicks in their ovens?
Occasionally, however, some truly spectacular births occurr. One such was the birth of our neighbor’s calf. We were living in Auburn then. Our neighbors, the Van Landinghams, didn’t know much about cows or calves, but that didn’t keep them from having a pregnant white face cow. This poor cow had been trying to have a calf all day, but things just weren’t working out for her.
My wife, Joanne, was teaching math at a local high school at the time. I mention this to explain her inappropriate apparel. I was working for Intercoast Life Insurance as an underwriter and working on my teaching credential at the University of California, Davis. I had arrived home from school fairly early, but even so Joanne had arrived before me. As I drove up the hill to the house I could see her trying to help this cow through her hard birth, assisted by our neighbors.
Joanne was still wearing hose and heels because she didn’t even go up to the house to change into her grubbies, but just leaped headlong into the situation.
She was dressed for school, except for her blouse. She had removed that garment and wadded up in her hands to use it to get a better grip on the calf as she pulled. The calf had presented its front legs properly. This was not a breech birth situation. The calf was simply too large.
Some readers may not have had the opportunity to assist at a mammal’s birth. On the other hand, some female readers may have given birth to your own mammal, but hopefully not in the middle of a cow pasture surrounded by well meaning but ineffective amateurs
I drove on by the impromptu delivery room and changed my clothes. By the time I returned to the scene of the action, the blouse had been discarded in favor of a length of baling wire looped around the calf’s front feet. The blouse, too slimy to put back on, just lay heaped in the grass. Joanne tugged at the calf, and then I tugged at the calf, and then we tugged at the calf. But it was hopeless, and eventually even we saw that. The calf was stuck like a pig in a stove pipe.
We decided to call the vet. An ungenerous observer might say we should have called the vet in the beginning. But that would be – ungenerous. We always try to solve our problems by ourselves before we call in people with knowledge and tools. It’s our family, it’s a tradition.
As Barbara Van Landingham called Virgil Traynor, the newest veterinarian in town whom we called Virgil the Vet, her 12-year-old daughter, Julie came out with a jug of wine and some glasses. I don’t know about the cow, but the rest of us definitely needed a restorative.
Eventually Virgil the Vet arrived. He set up a pully arrangement attached to a frame connecting the good mother earth to the buttocks of the good mother cow. Then he attached a line to the calf’s front feet and, without benefit of clergy or contraction, began to crank away. The calf came out. A bull calf. A long, thin bull calf. I thought it was a wonder both mother and son survived the birthing process.
The cow bonded with her calf and began cleaning her up. But she was still having massive contractions. Finally, with a hearty shudder, she expelled a blob about the size of a basketball.
“What’s that?” Joanne asked.
“Uterus,” replied Virgil the Vet.
“What will we do?”
“Clean it off.” With that, Virgil began plucking blood clots off the uterus.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” contributed Paula, the older Van Landingham girl.
“Go somewhere else to be sick,” replied Paula’s unsympathetic mother, Barbara. “Don’t do it here.”
In short order, Virgil cleaned off the uterus, and was ready to place it back inside the cow. This was more easily said than done, for the cow was still shuddering and contracting. Moreover, the uterus, while it had shrunk a little, was still a formidably sized organ. Virgil didn’t want to spend time waiting for the cow to stop contracting and the uterus to shrink, which would surely have happened eventually. Instead, he and Joanne together put their hearts and hands into the reinsertion project. There followed a curious game of push-of-war (the opposite of tug-of-war).
At last the uterus was inside the cow where it belonged. At least, it was inside the cow. Who could say where inside the cow it actually was. Virgil rummaged through his shiny, new doctor’s bag. “Darn, I don’t have a needle or any thread. Oh, well, keep an eye on her and if the uterus falls out, give me a call.” As he was leaving, he added, “Call me tomorrow. I’m going out tonight.”
We left the cow tending her calf, who by this time had pulled himself together somewhat and looked a little more like a real calf than one from an alternative universe.
The next morning the cow was found grazing in her pasture, both calf and uterus following dutifully behind her. Another call made, and Virgil the Vet returned, this time with a needle and thread. This time the uterus, now the size of a small apple, went in easily.
Virgil charged the Van Landinghams for two calls. He also said that the cow would never have another calf, a reasonable enough assertion on the face of it. But in subsequent years, the cow had several more calves
.
What was I doing while all this tugging and pushing of generative organs was going on? Well, someone had to make notes.
©Ken Harris, 2007
Puppies, guppies and other wildlife young were not occasions for great comment in our family. Someone was always whelping, calving, littering or otherwise inconveniencing themselves. Doesn’t everyone hatch chicks in their ovens?
Occasionally, however, some truly spectacular births occurr. One such was the birth of our neighbor’s calf. We were living in Auburn then. Our neighbors, the Van Landinghams, didn’t know much about cows or calves, but that didn’t keep them from having a pregnant white face cow. This poor cow had been trying to have a calf all day, but things just weren’t working out for her.
My wife, Joanne, was teaching math at a local high school at the time. I mention this to explain her inappropriate apparel. I was working for Intercoast Life Insurance as an underwriter and working on my teaching credential at the University of California, Davis. I had arrived home from school fairly early, but even so Joanne had arrived before me. As I drove up the hill to the house I could see her trying to help this cow through her hard birth, assisted by our neighbors.
Joanne was still wearing hose and heels because she didn’t even go up to the house to change into her grubbies, but just leaped headlong into the situation.
She was dressed for school, except for her blouse. She had removed that garment and wadded up in her hands to use it to get a better grip on the calf as she pulled. The calf had presented its front legs properly. This was not a breech birth situation. The calf was simply too large.
Some readers may not have had the opportunity to assist at a mammal’s birth. On the other hand, some female readers may have given birth to your own mammal, but hopefully not in the middle of a cow pasture surrounded by well meaning but ineffective amateurs
I drove on by the impromptu delivery room and changed my clothes. By the time I returned to the scene of the action, the blouse had been discarded in favor of a length of baling wire looped around the calf’s front feet. The blouse, too slimy to put back on, just lay heaped in the grass. Joanne tugged at the calf, and then I tugged at the calf, and then we tugged at the calf. But it was hopeless, and eventually even we saw that. The calf was stuck like a pig in a stove pipe.
We decided to call the vet. An ungenerous observer might say we should have called the vet in the beginning. But that would be – ungenerous. We always try to solve our problems by ourselves before we call in people with knowledge and tools. It’s our family, it’s a tradition.
As Barbara Van Landingham called Virgil Traynor, the newest veterinarian in town whom we called Virgil the Vet, her 12-year-old daughter, Julie came out with a jug of wine and some glasses. I don’t know about the cow, but the rest of us definitely needed a restorative.
Eventually Virgil the Vet arrived. He set up a pully arrangement attached to a frame connecting the good mother earth to the buttocks of the good mother cow. Then he attached a line to the calf’s front feet and, without benefit of clergy or contraction, began to crank away. The calf came out. A bull calf. A long, thin bull calf. I thought it was a wonder both mother and son survived the birthing process.
The cow bonded with her calf and began cleaning her up. But she was still having massive contractions. Finally, with a hearty shudder, she expelled a blob about the size of a basketball.
“What’s that?” Joanne asked.
“Uterus,” replied Virgil the Vet.
“What will we do?”
“Clean it off.” With that, Virgil began plucking blood clots off the uterus.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” contributed Paula, the older Van Landingham girl.
“Go somewhere else to be sick,” replied Paula’s unsympathetic mother, Barbara. “Don’t do it here.”
In short order, Virgil cleaned off the uterus, and was ready to place it back inside the cow. This was more easily said than done, for the cow was still shuddering and contracting. Moreover, the uterus, while it had shrunk a little, was still a formidably sized organ. Virgil didn’t want to spend time waiting for the cow to stop contracting and the uterus to shrink, which would surely have happened eventually. Instead, he and Joanne together put their hearts and hands into the reinsertion project. There followed a curious game of push-of-war (the opposite of tug-of-war).
At last the uterus was inside the cow where it belonged. At least, it was inside the cow. Who could say where inside the cow it actually was. Virgil rummaged through his shiny, new doctor’s bag. “Darn, I don’t have a needle or any thread. Oh, well, keep an eye on her and if the uterus falls out, give me a call.” As he was leaving, he added, “Call me tomorrow. I’m going out tonight.”
We left the cow tending her calf, who by this time had pulled himself together somewhat and looked a little more like a real calf than one from an alternative universe.
The next morning the cow was found grazing in her pasture, both calf and uterus following dutifully behind her. Another call made, and Virgil the Vet returned, this time with a needle and thread. This time the uterus, now the size of a small apple, went in easily.
Virgil charged the Van Landinghams for two calls. He also said that the cow would never have another calf, a reasonable enough assertion on the face of it. But in subsequent years, the cow had several more calves
.
What was I doing while all this tugging and pushing of generative organs was going on? Well, someone had to make notes.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Redwing, "Okie Cow"
Redwing, “Okie Cow”
©Ken Harris, 2008
The people who sold Redwing to us called her an Okie Cow. She had beef cow and milk cow in her DNA. She was brown and white; we figured her for Hereford crossed with something dairy. She had the dairy cow personality, mellow, easy to handle. Our son, Eric, named her Redwing.
We bred her to a beef bull every year. Redwing’s beef background gave us a 3/4-beef calf, something we could sink our teeth into when he (or she – we’re equal opportunity carnivores) grew to the right size. Her dairy background guaranteed enough milk so that we could raise a second calf, a “drop calf,” on her, thereby getting two edible animals for the effort of raising one. Drop calves were to be had at the dairy, little bull calves not much use to anyone who makes his living milking cows. Drop calves were usually free and, while the beef wasn’t top notch, the price was great.
Redwing had all the maternal virtues and bonded quickly with her own calves. She showed less enthusiasm for the “orphans” we foisted upon her, but she usually came around after a couple of weeks. Not only did she nurture her own babies, she was careful and considerate of other peoples’ babies as well, whether human, equine, canine, feline. I have a picture of my nephew, Mark Kampe, sitting on her back while she is lying down enjoying the sun. The amazing thing to me is that her brand new calf is lying down just a few feet away. Another time, I came home from work to find the three neighbor children and our own two all perched somehow on the cow. Eric was climbing hand over hand up Redwing’s tail. All of the children were singing Michael, Row the Boat Ashore at the top of their lungs. Redwing stood placidly and appeared, and if she didn’t enjoy the attention, she appeared resigned to it.
We bred her through by artificial insemination. On an appointed morning the local artificial inseminator would show up with his selection of bull semen stored in a dewar of liquid nitrogen. For the curious, nitrogen liquefies at -320°F. He handled his vials of semen very carefully, because at 320 below you could give yourself a nasty freezer burn. Then, while one of us held Redwing by her halter and the other held her tail aside, The Great Inseminator inserted a tube into the cow’s vagina, into the uterus, put his mouth to the free end of the tube, puffed firmly, and the job was done. The cow flinched every time. Well, I guess! That semen couldn’t have warmed up all that much. I always entertained myself with the speculation about what would happen if cows could come up with a pre-emptive uterine puff first. There would be fewer artificial inseminators and more happy bulls.
Once a Hereford bull did make it into our pasture. That animal was BIG. We didn’t go into our own pasture for several days, until we located his owner. Redwing loved it. Her own personal bull. She grazed at his side with a smile on her face like she’d just filled an inside straight flush.
When Redwing first came to live with us, she had little buttons for horns. If we had taken them off with a pocket knife right then, there would have been no problem. But we were so ignorant. We let them grow and soon she had four-inch horns and we had a problem because, while she wasn’t vicious and would never have gored us on purpose, she might whack us accidentally shooing flies away. We hired our horse shoer, Jack Howell, the same one who taught us how to trim a rabbit’s teeth. Jack came over with a hacksaw and a can of combination disinfectant and instant blood clotter-wound sealer. Again, with little formality, we held her down and Jack sawed away. My lord, the blood. It spurted with each beat of her heart, long streams, eight feet. The canned medicine worked and the blood flow ceased almost instantly. We turned her loose within a few minutes. For the next week, Redwing refused to speak to us. When we entered the pasture with hay or oats, she turned and looked away. If we pursued the matter, she would walk away. She just wanted nothing to do with treacherous people. I couldn’t blame her. We had let our ignorance get us into a situation that could not be resolved in any pleasant way.
Augustine was probably the best drop calf Redwing ever raised. We drove out to a dairy where a nine-year-old boy was in charge. He took us out to a large wooden barn where a number of calves stood, tied by their necks to the walls with jute baling twine. We chose one and loaded him into the bed of the pickup and drove home. At least, we thought it was a him because we didn’t check too closely. We figured even a nine-year-old, if he was connected to a dairy, must know the difference between a bull calf and a heifer.
He didn’t. August became Augustina and she was as gentle as one of the dogs. We knew we would have trouble butchering her for beef. She was just too nice. We traded her to some neighbors for alfalfa because they wanted her for a 4-H project for one of their daughters. A few weeks later we received a phone call from the neighbors wanting to know something about Augustina’s breeding. The 4-H organization didn’t require papers but they did want to know something about the heifer’s background. Sui generis doesn’t cut it with the 4-H. Joanne phoned the dairyman and explained how we’d gone out to get a bull calf and the kid gave us a heifer, ha ha, and now the new owners wanted to know something about the animal. “Is that what happened to her?” quietly asked the dairyman, more to himself than to Joanne. “That heifer’s mother was last year’s state butter-fat champion. Is there any chance I could get her back?” Joanne gave the dairyman our neighbor’s phone number. We never did hear how it turned out, but it seemed obvious that Augustina was not going to go on the butcher’s block.
When we moved to Guam we had to get rid of Redwing, send her to another home. Many people wanted to buy her. She was sweet, kind, gentle and if you staked her out by the road to get rid of a fire hazard, that hazard was gone. Our friend Betty Veal offered to buy the cow and to satisfy my ego I said I wanted $1.00 per pound for her, a fair enough price for the world’s greatest cow. Then I estimated her weight to be 100 pounds, and Betty and we struck a deal.
Redwing lived with Betty for many more years. Some years she raised two calves, some years one, some years none at all. After Redwing had passed her 20th birthday, one man suggested to another that she be butchered for bologna. “Good thing Betty’s not here. She’d make bologna out of you for that suggestion,” was the reply. Redwing had that effect on all who knew her. She wasn’t a cow, she was a person.
When Redwing died Betty hired a backhoe operator to dig a hole under the oak tree at the west end of her property and bury the cow there. She had liked to stand there in the evenings and watch the sun set. Like most of us, Betty was not foolishly sensitive; but some people just deserve a final gesture of respect, and Redwing was one of those.
©Ken Harris, 2008
The people who sold Redwing to us called her an Okie Cow. She had beef cow and milk cow in her DNA. She was brown and white; we figured her for Hereford crossed with something dairy. She had the dairy cow personality, mellow, easy to handle. Our son, Eric, named her Redwing.
We bred her to a beef bull every year. Redwing’s beef background gave us a 3/4-beef calf, something we could sink our teeth into when he (or she – we’re equal opportunity carnivores) grew to the right size. Her dairy background guaranteed enough milk so that we could raise a second calf, a “drop calf,” on her, thereby getting two edible animals for the effort of raising one. Drop calves were to be had at the dairy, little bull calves not much use to anyone who makes his living milking cows. Drop calves were usually free and, while the beef wasn’t top notch, the price was great.
Redwing had all the maternal virtues and bonded quickly with her own calves. She showed less enthusiasm for the “orphans” we foisted upon her, but she usually came around after a couple of weeks. Not only did she nurture her own babies, she was careful and considerate of other peoples’ babies as well, whether human, equine, canine, feline. I have a picture of my nephew, Mark Kampe, sitting on her back while she is lying down enjoying the sun. The amazing thing to me is that her brand new calf is lying down just a few feet away. Another time, I came home from work to find the three neighbor children and our own two all perched somehow on the cow. Eric was climbing hand over hand up Redwing’s tail. All of the children were singing Michael, Row the Boat Ashore at the top of their lungs. Redwing stood placidly and appeared, and if she didn’t enjoy the attention, she appeared resigned to it.
We bred her through by artificial insemination. On an appointed morning the local artificial inseminator would show up with his selection of bull semen stored in a dewar of liquid nitrogen. For the curious, nitrogen liquefies at -320°F. He handled his vials of semen very carefully, because at 320 below you could give yourself a nasty freezer burn. Then, while one of us held Redwing by her halter and the other held her tail aside, The Great Inseminator inserted a tube into the cow’s vagina, into the uterus, put his mouth to the free end of the tube, puffed firmly, and the job was done. The cow flinched every time. Well, I guess! That semen couldn’t have warmed up all that much. I always entertained myself with the speculation about what would happen if cows could come up with a pre-emptive uterine puff first. There would be fewer artificial inseminators and more happy bulls.
Once a Hereford bull did make it into our pasture. That animal was BIG. We didn’t go into our own pasture for several days, until we located his owner. Redwing loved it. Her own personal bull. She grazed at his side with a smile on her face like she’d just filled an inside straight flush.
When Redwing first came to live with us, she had little buttons for horns. If we had taken them off with a pocket knife right then, there would have been no problem. But we were so ignorant. We let them grow and soon she had four-inch horns and we had a problem because, while she wasn’t vicious and would never have gored us on purpose, she might whack us accidentally shooing flies away. We hired our horse shoer, Jack Howell, the same one who taught us how to trim a rabbit’s teeth. Jack came over with a hacksaw and a can of combination disinfectant and instant blood clotter-wound sealer. Again, with little formality, we held her down and Jack sawed away. My lord, the blood. It spurted with each beat of her heart, long streams, eight feet. The canned medicine worked and the blood flow ceased almost instantly. We turned her loose within a few minutes. For the next week, Redwing refused to speak to us. When we entered the pasture with hay or oats, she turned and looked away. If we pursued the matter, she would walk away. She just wanted nothing to do with treacherous people. I couldn’t blame her. We had let our ignorance get us into a situation that could not be resolved in any pleasant way.
Augustine was probably the best drop calf Redwing ever raised. We drove out to a dairy where a nine-year-old boy was in charge. He took us out to a large wooden barn where a number of calves stood, tied by their necks to the walls with jute baling twine. We chose one and loaded him into the bed of the pickup and drove home. At least, we thought it was a him because we didn’t check too closely. We figured even a nine-year-old, if he was connected to a dairy, must know the difference between a bull calf and a heifer.
He didn’t. August became Augustina and she was as gentle as one of the dogs. We knew we would have trouble butchering her for beef. She was just too nice. We traded her to some neighbors for alfalfa because they wanted her for a 4-H project for one of their daughters. A few weeks later we received a phone call from the neighbors wanting to know something about Augustina’s breeding. The 4-H organization didn’t require papers but they did want to know something about the heifer’s background. Sui generis doesn’t cut it with the 4-H. Joanne phoned the dairyman and explained how we’d gone out to get a bull calf and the kid gave us a heifer, ha ha, and now the new owners wanted to know something about the animal. “Is that what happened to her?” quietly asked the dairyman, more to himself than to Joanne. “That heifer’s mother was last year’s state butter-fat champion. Is there any chance I could get her back?” Joanne gave the dairyman our neighbor’s phone number. We never did hear how it turned out, but it seemed obvious that Augustina was not going to go on the butcher’s block.
When we moved to Guam we had to get rid of Redwing, send her to another home. Many people wanted to buy her. She was sweet, kind, gentle and if you staked her out by the road to get rid of a fire hazard, that hazard was gone. Our friend Betty Veal offered to buy the cow and to satisfy my ego I said I wanted $1.00 per pound for her, a fair enough price for the world’s greatest cow. Then I estimated her weight to be 100 pounds, and Betty and we struck a deal.
Redwing lived with Betty for many more years. Some years she raised two calves, some years one, some years none at all. After Redwing had passed her 20th birthday, one man suggested to another that she be butchered for bologna. “Good thing Betty’s not here. She’d make bologna out of you for that suggestion,” was the reply. Redwing had that effect on all who knew her. She wasn’t a cow, she was a person.
When Redwing died Betty hired a backhoe operator to dig a hole under the oak tree at the west end of her property and bury the cow there. She had liked to stand there in the evenings and watch the sun set. Like most of us, Betty was not foolishly sensitive; but some people just deserve a final gesture of respect, and Redwing was one of those.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Betty's Heifer
Betty’s Heifer
©Ken Harris, 2008
Back in the 1960s in Auburn, California, Jack and Betty Veal lived on some acreage with their horses, cattle, chickens and other family members including a white faced heifer whom they felt was ready to be introduced to a gentleman cow. Unfortunately for a good many of us, Betty’s heifer did not want to be introduced to any gentleman cow, thank you very much.
Betty hitched her two-horse trailer to the pickup, removed the divider so that the heifer would have plenty of room once she was loaded, and put a little hay and grain on the floor in front of the trailer, something to entice the beast inside. But the heifer wasn’t having any of it. Hay and grain were all right in their place, and that place in a manger or feed rack, certainly not on a floor inside of a trailer. The heifer wouldn’t go in the trailer.
Betty called her friends to help. Joanne and I responded to the call, along with our horse, Legend, in case we needed some good old fashioned cow ponying. Carolyn Geier also brought her horse. Ina Robinson, Max and Jonie Fields, and Woody Bexar formed the rest of our excessively brave and foolish crew.
The plan was to herd the cow into the trailer quickly and painlessly and then treat ourselves to self-congratulatory brewskis. Unfortunately, nobody consulted the heifer.
First, the heifer didn’t want to be herded. Joanne and Carolyn tried to sandwich her between their horses and guide her toward the trailer. The heifer was having none of that, however, and made a 90° turn to the left and ran under Joanne’s horse toward a fence. The horse, Legend, was somewhat surprised by this antic, but she had been used as an endurance horse, a cart horse, a trail driving horse, a parade horse and a carrier of small nieces and nephews. In fact, we had asked her to do everything but tap dance. So she didn’t panic when the heifer ran under her. She just thought it was unusual and raised her front legs so the heifer could proceed unmolested toward the fence.
The fence, now, that was really going to bring the cow up short. It stood four feet tall and proud, heavy gauge field fencing attached to thick, steel posts. Surely this fine fence would hold the cow.
But, actually, the fine fence didn’t hold the cow. The fine fence didn’t even slow this cow down. She ploughed through the fence and proceeded westward dragging ten yards of fencing and T-posts behind her. I am sure that when Leonardo first conceived of the tank he had just seen a runaway cow.
We followed behind the heifer as best we could. She faced another fence and slowed for it and so we caught up. By that time she had shed her field fence adornment. As we urged her trailerward, she took out the second fence and off she went again. We followed in her wake, confidence now replaced by desperation. We soon left the boundaries of the Veal ranchette and proceeded down a draw filled with scrub oak, poison oak, rocks and brambles. I began to wonder if we were going to have to follow her to Marysville, some thirty miles away. Suddenly Woody Bexar got close enough to the the cow to get a loop around her neck. He quickly ran to an oak tree that fortunately grew nearby and took a dally. The Cow hit the end of the rope and the earth around the oak tree quivered. The cow dropped like a rock.
We quickly loosened the noose around her neck because we didn’t want her to die on us, not there, not a half mile from the nearest motorized pulley. Skinning and dressing out a cow with a Swiss army knife and then packing it out was just not an option. She soon regained consciousness, but then she just lay there, flat on her belly, front and back legs pointing back, just as though she had splatted on the spot from an airplane overhead. In an attempt to motivate her to move, Joanne and Carolyn attached lassoes around the animal’s neck and began to drag her toward the trailer and her gentleman suitor. Surely she would yield to force majeur, and get onto her feet and follow along rather than have her head pulled off. Surely.
No. Surely not. Joanne and Carolyn dragged her on her belly, leaving a trail a foot wide and three inches deep in the scrub oak duff. She was easy to track that way, but we didn’t need to track her. We already knew where she was.
We loosened the rope, but we were still many, many yards away from anywhere useful. Our next idea was to sever a hot wire from a nearby electric fence and hold it to her nose. That motivated her to move rapidly, but just far enough from the hot fence to where we could no longer shock her. Then she dropped again. But she outsmarted herself and fell near a puddle of water. One of us collected some water in a felt hat and poured it in her ear. The idea was to persuade the animal she was drowning and maybe she would swim cross country toward the trailer. Stupid as the idea was, it worked – for fifty feet. Then down she went again.
At this point we began to think in terms of a barbeque right there, on that particular spot. Or better yet, just shoot the he cow dead and go to church bingo that very night.
Somehow, though, after several hours and the expenditure of much energy, we got the animal to within two hundred feet of the trailer. Unfortunately for us, close as we were to the trailer, there was a large barn in the way. And brutal as you may think us, that heifer was in a lot better shape than we were.
At that point Betty Veal’s husband, Jack, drove up. He saw our problem and at once announced a solution. First, he opened the barn doors on both sides of the building so that we had a straight shot at the trailer. Then, the trailer already having been prepared for the heifer’s virginal entrance, Jack stationed two of us to quickly slam the ramp up and lock it once the calf had entered. These preparations made, Jack picked up a pair of offset pliers and grabbed the heifer’s nasal septum and gave it a sharp twist.
The heifer sprang up with a roar and began to chase Jack with lethal intent. Jack had no desire to die that day, and so he ran for the trailer. Very fast. He was highly motivated. He didn’t dare let go of the pliers or slow down, either one. He flew into the trailer, closely followed by a fire breathing heifer. And then, as the ramp clanged shut behind him, he let go of the pliers and dove head first out trailer’s safety door up front. He let the heifer have the pliers.
And so we had our brewskies after all and finished the day covered with blood, sweat and beers. The heifer, meanwhile, left in the trailer on her way to meet her gentleman cow. Aint love grand?
©Ken Harris, 2008
Back in the 1960s in Auburn, California, Jack and Betty Veal lived on some acreage with their horses, cattle, chickens and other family members including a white faced heifer whom they felt was ready to be introduced to a gentleman cow. Unfortunately for a good many of us, Betty’s heifer did not want to be introduced to any gentleman cow, thank you very much.
Betty hitched her two-horse trailer to the pickup, removed the divider so that the heifer would have plenty of room once she was loaded, and put a little hay and grain on the floor in front of the trailer, something to entice the beast inside. But the heifer wasn’t having any of it. Hay and grain were all right in their place, and that place in a manger or feed rack, certainly not on a floor inside of a trailer. The heifer wouldn’t go in the trailer.
Betty called her friends to help. Joanne and I responded to the call, along with our horse, Legend, in case we needed some good old fashioned cow ponying. Carolyn Geier also brought her horse. Ina Robinson, Max and Jonie Fields, and Woody Bexar formed the rest of our excessively brave and foolish crew.
The plan was to herd the cow into the trailer quickly and painlessly and then treat ourselves to self-congratulatory brewskis. Unfortunately, nobody consulted the heifer.
First, the heifer didn’t want to be herded. Joanne and Carolyn tried to sandwich her between their horses and guide her toward the trailer. The heifer was having none of that, however, and made a 90° turn to the left and ran under Joanne’s horse toward a fence. The horse, Legend, was somewhat surprised by this antic, but she had been used as an endurance horse, a cart horse, a trail driving horse, a parade horse and a carrier of small nieces and nephews. In fact, we had asked her to do everything but tap dance. So she didn’t panic when the heifer ran under her. She just thought it was unusual and raised her front legs so the heifer could proceed unmolested toward the fence.
The fence, now, that was really going to bring the cow up short. It stood four feet tall and proud, heavy gauge field fencing attached to thick, steel posts. Surely this fine fence would hold the cow.
But, actually, the fine fence didn’t hold the cow. The fine fence didn’t even slow this cow down. She ploughed through the fence and proceeded westward dragging ten yards of fencing and T-posts behind her. I am sure that when Leonardo first conceived of the tank he had just seen a runaway cow.
We followed behind the heifer as best we could. She faced another fence and slowed for it and so we caught up. By that time she had shed her field fence adornment. As we urged her trailerward, she took out the second fence and off she went again. We followed in her wake, confidence now replaced by desperation. We soon left the boundaries of the Veal ranchette and proceeded down a draw filled with scrub oak, poison oak, rocks and brambles. I began to wonder if we were going to have to follow her to Marysville, some thirty miles away. Suddenly Woody Bexar got close enough to the the cow to get a loop around her neck. He quickly ran to an oak tree that fortunately grew nearby and took a dally. The Cow hit the end of the rope and the earth around the oak tree quivered. The cow dropped like a rock.
We quickly loosened the noose around her neck because we didn’t want her to die on us, not there, not a half mile from the nearest motorized pulley. Skinning and dressing out a cow with a Swiss army knife and then packing it out was just not an option. She soon regained consciousness, but then she just lay there, flat on her belly, front and back legs pointing back, just as though she had splatted on the spot from an airplane overhead. In an attempt to motivate her to move, Joanne and Carolyn attached lassoes around the animal’s neck and began to drag her toward the trailer and her gentleman suitor. Surely she would yield to force majeur, and get onto her feet and follow along rather than have her head pulled off. Surely.
No. Surely not. Joanne and Carolyn dragged her on her belly, leaving a trail a foot wide and three inches deep in the scrub oak duff. She was easy to track that way, but we didn’t need to track her. We already knew where she was.
We loosened the rope, but we were still many, many yards away from anywhere useful. Our next idea was to sever a hot wire from a nearby electric fence and hold it to her nose. That motivated her to move rapidly, but just far enough from the hot fence to where we could no longer shock her. Then she dropped again. But she outsmarted herself and fell near a puddle of water. One of us collected some water in a felt hat and poured it in her ear. The idea was to persuade the animal she was drowning and maybe she would swim cross country toward the trailer. Stupid as the idea was, it worked – for fifty feet. Then down she went again.
At this point we began to think in terms of a barbeque right there, on that particular spot. Or better yet, just shoot the he cow dead and go to church bingo that very night.
Somehow, though, after several hours and the expenditure of much energy, we got the animal to within two hundred feet of the trailer. Unfortunately for us, close as we were to the trailer, there was a large barn in the way. And brutal as you may think us, that heifer was in a lot better shape than we were.
At that point Betty Veal’s husband, Jack, drove up. He saw our problem and at once announced a solution. First, he opened the barn doors on both sides of the building so that we had a straight shot at the trailer. Then, the trailer already having been prepared for the heifer’s virginal entrance, Jack stationed two of us to quickly slam the ramp up and lock it once the calf had entered. These preparations made, Jack picked up a pair of offset pliers and grabbed the heifer’s nasal septum and gave it a sharp twist.
The heifer sprang up with a roar and began to chase Jack with lethal intent. Jack had no desire to die that day, and so he ran for the trailer. Very fast. He was highly motivated. He didn’t dare let go of the pliers or slow down, either one. He flew into the trailer, closely followed by a fire breathing heifer. And then, as the ramp clanged shut behind him, he let go of the pliers and dove head first out trailer’s safety door up front. He let the heifer have the pliers.
And so we had our brewskies after all and finished the day covered with blood, sweat and beers. The heifer, meanwhile, left in the trailer on her way to meet her gentleman cow. Aint love grand?
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Vaca Mexicana
Vaca Mexicana
©Ken Harris, 2008
In 1956 or 57 my wife and I lived in a Hollywood apartment and attended universities. We were both working very hard and welcomed the opportunity to take a brief vacation whenever we could. Usually we went to Joanne’s parents’ mining claim on Paiute Mountain in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains. Usually we took Bobo, a poodle, with us.
Bobo was very intelligent and could learn anything in five minutes. This was fortunate because he could forget anything he wanted in ten minutes. He would also put his own spin on his orders of the day. “Don’t get on the couch” meant “wait until everyone has gone for the day.” But he was pleasant company even with his faults.
On this particular occasion we had finished supper in the cabin and the three of us went for a walk to the meadow several hundred yards to the north. We gingerly crawled through a rusty barbed wire fence surrounding the pasture and noted the sign of many cattle. The meadow was part of the Bureau of Land Management domain and overgrazing seemed to be a part of their policy.
We came across the herd. There were a lot of them. Mexican cows, some with twisty horns, all of them lean. A few had extravagant brands on their hips. None of them looked like Elsie. The herd bull stood to the far side of the herd and ignored us. He didn’t look like Elmer, either. His disinterest in us was his only redeeming trait that I could see.
We stayed clear of the herd and tried to keep within running distance of the fence. It was just as well we had, for Bobo found a calf. He immediately tried to play a game with the calf, something named “I chase you around.” The calf cried, “Mama!”
The old lady showed up immediately. As soon as she saw Bobo and us her expression changed from exasperation to menace. She was a strawberry road cow, so lean you could count her ribs with long, twisty, glinting horns. The right horn could have gone in my navel and out my nose.
We called for Bobo, quietly. “Bobo.” Then firmly. “Bobo!” Then desperately. “BOBO!!!”
By this time the cow had decided which of us she wanted to gore first and she began to move. So did we. I beat Joanne to the fence by several yards at once demonstrating speed and lack of gallantry. Bobo, delighted that we had joined in the game, yapped and barked harder.
The calf ran away from all the noise and confusion and the cow followed. And that’s all of the story. Nothing really happened. Except I remember thinking the next morning as I shaved, “This is ridiculous. Indians don’t get grey at 23.”
©Ken Harris, 2008
In 1956 or 57 my wife and I lived in a Hollywood apartment and attended universities. We were both working very hard and welcomed the opportunity to take a brief vacation whenever we could. Usually we went to Joanne’s parents’ mining claim on Paiute Mountain in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains. Usually we took Bobo, a poodle, with us.
Bobo was very intelligent and could learn anything in five minutes. This was fortunate because he could forget anything he wanted in ten minutes. He would also put his own spin on his orders of the day. “Don’t get on the couch” meant “wait until everyone has gone for the day.” But he was pleasant company even with his faults.
On this particular occasion we had finished supper in the cabin and the three of us went for a walk to the meadow several hundred yards to the north. We gingerly crawled through a rusty barbed wire fence surrounding the pasture and noted the sign of many cattle. The meadow was part of the Bureau of Land Management domain and overgrazing seemed to be a part of their policy.
We came across the herd. There were a lot of them. Mexican cows, some with twisty horns, all of them lean. A few had extravagant brands on their hips. None of them looked like Elsie. The herd bull stood to the far side of the herd and ignored us. He didn’t look like Elmer, either. His disinterest in us was his only redeeming trait that I could see.
We stayed clear of the herd and tried to keep within running distance of the fence. It was just as well we had, for Bobo found a calf. He immediately tried to play a game with the calf, something named “I chase you around.” The calf cried, “Mama!”
The old lady showed up immediately. As soon as she saw Bobo and us her expression changed from exasperation to menace. She was a strawberry road cow, so lean you could count her ribs with long, twisty, glinting horns. The right horn could have gone in my navel and out my nose.
We called for Bobo, quietly. “Bobo.” Then firmly. “Bobo!” Then desperately. “BOBO!!!”
By this time the cow had decided which of us she wanted to gore first and she began to move. So did we. I beat Joanne to the fence by several yards at once demonstrating speed and lack of gallantry. Bobo, delighted that we had joined in the game, yapped and barked harder.
The calf ran away from all the noise and confusion and the cow followed. And that’s all of the story. Nothing really happened. Except I remember thinking the next morning as I shaved, “This is ridiculous. Indians don’t get grey at 23.”
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Poquito
Poquito
©Ken Harris, 2007
When we married in 1956, we were both 22 years old and convinced we were adults. Everyone else had their doubts. We had a small apartment in Hollywood near Vermont Avenue and Sunset Boulevard. Joanne worked on her secondary teaching credential at Cal State Los Angeles and I pursued a bachelor’s degree at UCLA. We had no pets.
No pets. No car. Very little money. For wheels we had a little handcart to carry our groceries home. We couldn’t even buy enough food for seven dinners. Joanne’s parents, Sid and Esther, always came through with an invitation for Sunday dinner. It was in our budget. They even drove out to get us when we couldn’t afford bus fare from Hollywood to El Monte. We were so poor that we once had a party and served the cheapest beer we could buy mixed with the cheapest sauterne we could buy as a punch. Our guests were so poor they drank it and so polite they called it good.
We wanted a pet, but how could we afford one? Answer: we couldn’t. And that’s where the mouse came in.
I first met our mouse one morning when I came into the kitchen to fix breakfast. I had known he was living with us because I had seen little droppings around the kitchen. We had intended to get a mouse trap, but we were both very busy. Besides, if he could find anything to eat around our house, he was welcome to it. (I got down to 155 pounds at this time of life. But I was working 12 hours a night at the Post Office and carrying 18 units at UCLA.)
On this particular morning I came into the kitchen and found the mouse in our cast iron skillet. He ran in circles in terror. Then he tried to dig his way out through the bottom of the skillet. At last he put it together that the only way out was up and over. And with a mighty leap he made it -- halfway over the rim. He scrambled frantically until he dropped over the side of the skillet to freedom, falling out of the pan into the fire ring, beyond the drip pan, bouncing off various inner workings of the stove and eventually hitting the floor. He made a mad dash for the door, but missed. By several inches. Instead he smacked his nose on the door trim, which sent him reeling backwards. Recovering, he finally made his escape. It cost him every shred of dignity, but he escaped.
At this particular point in our lives Joanne was taking a course called Mammalogy. One of the class activities involved capturing a mammal, chopping its head off, boiling or otherwise getting rid of the meat on the head and then intensely studying the skull. In this way you could tell what kind of animal it was. I guess they didn’t have Peterson’s Field Guides in those days. I never did much care for the premise behind this course. The activity may have furthered scientific knowledge a nanomillimeter, but it didn’t improve the animal at all.
We set out a live trap for Poquito, for so I named the mouse, and he, not suspecting our plans, walked right into it. We set up a little nest for him in a mouse cage and placed grain for him to eat. We seldom saw him, although when he thought he was unobserved he would pace the ceiling of his cage.
Fortunately for Poquito, someone gave Joanne a cow’s head. They had slaughtered the cow and gave us the head. So we didn’t need Poquito’s head. Rendering the meat off a cow’s head presented more of a challenge than a mouse’s head. It took several weeks. We borrowed an Army soup kettle and boiled away whenever we could.
Joanne had a friend, Sally Porter, who would drop by and check the pots, pans, cupboards and refrigerator for anything to eat. So in she dropped one afternoon early on in the rendering project and opened the soup kettle lid. She slammed it down again firmly, surprised by the mournful stare of the cow. We had not yet removed the eyeballs. In subsequent days she encountered the head in the refrigerator, on the stove, in the oven, always with less meat and more bone visible. Finally, she just gave up in discouragement and decided she would never find any Fritos® at our house.
So even though Poquito’s head could not serve science, his entire living body might do so as an example of a mammal. But once again, Poquito was saved! Joanne’s brother, Fritz, caught a gopher, and this was thought to be a much superior example of a mammal than a mere mouse. She built a terrarium for the gopher with wooden sides over the glass so that when they were removed people could observe the tunnels the gopher had dug.
So Joanne took the cow’s skull into class and the gopher in his terrarium while Poquito was left at home to pace the ceiling of his cage. Other people brought in other animals. One Saturday the class lab assistant, a student named Bill Hatten, came in to catch up on his work. Bill let his sample mammal, a dearomatized civet cat., out to wander the room and stretch his four little legs. When he caught the animal again, he saw that the terrarium had been disturbed. He sifted and resifted the dirt in the terrarium, but he never found hide nor hair nor fur nor feathers nor any part of that gopher.
Not only that, the civet cat had got into the study skins. Study skins were another part of the Mammology curriculum. Students had to trap small animals and skin them and box their hides, ie display them in a sort of unnatural looking rectangular form. They even took field trips to do this. But skinning a small animal is not all that easy. Granted, it’s easier than skinning an elephant or a giraffe, but small animals’ skins tear easily. Here you are, the intrepid student, trying to gently work the skin off a dead shrew, getting it off completely so that you can display it on a piece of cardboard, and it tears in half. You’ve not only gotten your hands dirty, you have no skin to show for it. The shrew isn’t improved either. Joanne was very good at skinning shrews because of her long experience as a Girl Hunter on Paiute Mountain in her early days. Whatever you shot, you ate; and dinner tasted better if you skinned it first. Joanne had quite a nice collection of study skins. And Bill Hatten’s civet cat completely tore them up.
We eventually turned Poquito loose. He didn’t get his head chopped off. He didn’t get eaten by a civet cat. With his luck, he probably sired nineteen generations of mouselets.
Anyway, in the conclusion you thought I’d never reach, our first three pets were a mouse, a gopher and a cow’s head. Now that is purely pathetic.
©Ken Harris, 2007
When we married in 1956, we were both 22 years old and convinced we were adults. Everyone else had their doubts. We had a small apartment in Hollywood near Vermont Avenue and Sunset Boulevard. Joanne worked on her secondary teaching credential at Cal State Los Angeles and I pursued a bachelor’s degree at UCLA. We had no pets.
No pets. No car. Very little money. For wheels we had a little handcart to carry our groceries home. We couldn’t even buy enough food for seven dinners. Joanne’s parents, Sid and Esther, always came through with an invitation for Sunday dinner. It was in our budget. They even drove out to get us when we couldn’t afford bus fare from Hollywood to El Monte. We were so poor that we once had a party and served the cheapest beer we could buy mixed with the cheapest sauterne we could buy as a punch. Our guests were so poor they drank it and so polite they called it good.
We wanted a pet, but how could we afford one? Answer: we couldn’t. And that’s where the mouse came in.
I first met our mouse one morning when I came into the kitchen to fix breakfast. I had known he was living with us because I had seen little droppings around the kitchen. We had intended to get a mouse trap, but we were both very busy. Besides, if he could find anything to eat around our house, he was welcome to it. (I got down to 155 pounds at this time of life. But I was working 12 hours a night at the Post Office and carrying 18 units at UCLA.)
On this particular morning I came into the kitchen and found the mouse in our cast iron skillet. He ran in circles in terror. Then he tried to dig his way out through the bottom of the skillet. At last he put it together that the only way out was up and over. And with a mighty leap he made it -- halfway over the rim. He scrambled frantically until he dropped over the side of the skillet to freedom, falling out of the pan into the fire ring, beyond the drip pan, bouncing off various inner workings of the stove and eventually hitting the floor. He made a mad dash for the door, but missed. By several inches. Instead he smacked his nose on the door trim, which sent him reeling backwards. Recovering, he finally made his escape. It cost him every shred of dignity, but he escaped.
At this particular point in our lives Joanne was taking a course called Mammalogy. One of the class activities involved capturing a mammal, chopping its head off, boiling or otherwise getting rid of the meat on the head and then intensely studying the skull. In this way you could tell what kind of animal it was. I guess they didn’t have Peterson’s Field Guides in those days. I never did much care for the premise behind this course. The activity may have furthered scientific knowledge a nanomillimeter, but it didn’t improve the animal at all.
We set out a live trap for Poquito, for so I named the mouse, and he, not suspecting our plans, walked right into it. We set up a little nest for him in a mouse cage and placed grain for him to eat. We seldom saw him, although when he thought he was unobserved he would pace the ceiling of his cage.
Fortunately for Poquito, someone gave Joanne a cow’s head. They had slaughtered the cow and gave us the head. So we didn’t need Poquito’s head. Rendering the meat off a cow’s head presented more of a challenge than a mouse’s head. It took several weeks. We borrowed an Army soup kettle and boiled away whenever we could.
Joanne had a friend, Sally Porter, who would drop by and check the pots, pans, cupboards and refrigerator for anything to eat. So in she dropped one afternoon early on in the rendering project and opened the soup kettle lid. She slammed it down again firmly, surprised by the mournful stare of the cow. We had not yet removed the eyeballs. In subsequent days she encountered the head in the refrigerator, on the stove, in the oven, always with less meat and more bone visible. Finally, she just gave up in discouragement and decided she would never find any Fritos® at our house.
So even though Poquito’s head could not serve science, his entire living body might do so as an example of a mammal. But once again, Poquito was saved! Joanne’s brother, Fritz, caught a gopher, and this was thought to be a much superior example of a mammal than a mere mouse. She built a terrarium for the gopher with wooden sides over the glass so that when they were removed people could observe the tunnels the gopher had dug.
So Joanne took the cow’s skull into class and the gopher in his terrarium while Poquito was left at home to pace the ceiling of his cage. Other people brought in other animals. One Saturday the class lab assistant, a student named Bill Hatten, came in to catch up on his work. Bill let his sample mammal, a dearomatized civet cat., out to wander the room and stretch his four little legs. When he caught the animal again, he saw that the terrarium had been disturbed. He sifted and resifted the dirt in the terrarium, but he never found hide nor hair nor fur nor feathers nor any part of that gopher.
Not only that, the civet cat had got into the study skins. Study skins were another part of the Mammology curriculum. Students had to trap small animals and skin them and box their hides, ie display them in a sort of unnatural looking rectangular form. They even took field trips to do this. But skinning a small animal is not all that easy. Granted, it’s easier than skinning an elephant or a giraffe, but small animals’ skins tear easily. Here you are, the intrepid student, trying to gently work the skin off a dead shrew, getting it off completely so that you can display it on a piece of cardboard, and it tears in half. You’ve not only gotten your hands dirty, you have no skin to show for it. The shrew isn’t improved either. Joanne was very good at skinning shrews because of her long experience as a Girl Hunter on Paiute Mountain in her early days. Whatever you shot, you ate; and dinner tasted better if you skinned it first. Joanne had quite a nice collection of study skins. And Bill Hatten’s civet cat completely tore them up.
We eventually turned Poquito loose. He didn’t get his head chopped off. He didn’t get eaten by a civet cat. With his luck, he probably sired nineteen generations of mouselets.
Anyway, in the conclusion you thought I’d never reach, our first three pets were a mouse, a gopher and a cow’s head. Now that is purely pathetic.
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