A timely rerun: I was asked recently why I mainly mention working with hooky, mean, snorty COWS. I confess, I haven’t said a whole lot about bulls or steers and their tendencies to be impolite or uncooperative. The fact is bulls can be plumb grumpy and extremely dangerous (especially if you’re as slow as me). Steers have their own modus operandi, altogether. I think we’ve all got a little experience with bulls. Most of mine has either found me horseback in a pasture or working them at a bull sale, both places where bulls are fairly cooperative. Yes, I’ve worked bulls, and we had one recently who would run my wife up the fence like it was going out of style. I can count the times on one hand where a bull actually came after me, though. I can count on two fingers the number of times a bull has gotten me down. Usually, they seem to mind their own business as long as I leave them alone—kind of like a yellow jacket. Steers are somewhat unpredictable. In steers, I’ve found that a fight or flight instinct is very pronounced. If you corner a steer, he would just as soon not have to hook you or come after you. Therefore, he tries to get away from you, and if he can see some daylight around you, you may just want to get out of the way. But you’d better get way out of the way, because I can almost guarantee you that he’ll cow kick at you on the way by. Yes, I’ve been run over by steers, but it was more out of their fear and my stupidity than them being mean. All of this being said, though, the real truth is that we spend a lot more time working cows than we do bulls or steers. We work cows in the fall. We work them in the spring. We spend days and nights with them while they’re calving. We sort them off their babies when it’s weaning time. We move them with their calves from pasture to pasture. The bulls have their own program, and the steers are generally calves when we first work them at the branding, growing into yearlings out in the mountain pasture. Weaning and shipping is our main bit of exposure to them. So spending so much time around cows allows us to see their cranky side a little more than we do that of their male counterparts. I’ve had cows literally throw me over a corral fence with one swing of their head. I’ve had cows get me down and go to hooking. I’ve had them come after me when I’m trying to tag a calf, and I’ve had them be rather uncordial in a lot of other ways, too. However, it’s because I spend more time with them than with their boyfriends and sons. One of the worst times to mess with cows is during calving. For the most part, they’re okay, but once in a while, their maternal, protective instincts morph them into snot-blowing devil cows. Steve Platt and I were talking about his cows, today. He calves them out in some pretty big CRP fields, so they’re getting chased by coyotes and other critters from time to time. They’re in good shape, so they act a little feisty. When he goes to tag the babies, he has to hide behind his Polaris Ranger in order to keep the cow at bay. Ian Murdock once had a cow that was getting a little cantankerous with him, so he quickly threw the calf up on the flatbed of the pickup and went to tagging. He looked up to see the cow with both front legs on the flatbed, and she was trying to join him for a hooking. Cows are mothers, and they will not abide anyone messing with their babies. I’d say just as many people have been to the hospital because of a cow injury than from a steer or bull injury. Jesus has those same kinds of instincts. Our enemy has stolen our hearts and caused us to look in every nook and cranny for life. Jesus isn’t happy about the arrangement, and he’s working overtime trying to rescue us. Exodus 14:14 tells us the protective instincts our God has for his children. “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Jesus is on the hook for us, and he will level the gates to fight for us. That’s the kind of God I want in my corner. Heck, that’s the only God worth having.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 04:21:46 +0000
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