George's Visit
The neighbor’s bull came to visit my cows, as bulls are prone to do.
George sniffed through the fence and decided he could beat up my bull, as bulls are prone to do.
My cows are at my summer pasture, where two creeks converge to wind almost back on themselves and the lush meadows grow nice calves.
The cattle know where to cross the creeks and where to avoid the muddy bottoms that can suck a 1200-pound cow out of sight.
Horses know, too, but 4-wheelers have a hard time making the distinction.
So when my neighbor came to claim his wandering bull, his 4-wheeler didn’t get the job done.
Friends who wanted to ride horses were visiting so I sent four of them to move George back home.
The 2000-pound George threw dirt over his shoulders and shook his head at them.
They decided George was fine right where he was.
I couldn’t blame George.
If I had been used to a 4-wheeler giving me directions, four horses staring me down might have made me defensive, too.
So I hopped on my trusty mare to offer guidance with less menace and more maneuverability.
The 93-degree day did not help my situation, but a mentor once said that if we wait for a perfect day to do a job, we will never get anything done.
It didn’t take long to find George, lounging with a small harem near the creek at the east end of the pasture.
I gathered all of them and meandered them west, allowing George to pretend he had a choice.
About halfway to the gate, George tired of his harem, as bulls are prone to do, so I found new cows to be his companions.
Two-thirds of the way, George was hot.
He found a pond and waded in.
I slapped him with my rope and hollered.
George strutted out.
We spent the next hour vacillating between a dead run across dry grass and diving into various mud holes.
I just slapped him out of a pond again and we ran some more.
After a while, George slung slobber over his shoulders and my mare was drenched in sweat.
She hated to quit, but I didn’t want George to die of heat-stroke.
My next plan was to bring my apprentice, Jennifer, as backup.
Jennifer is assertive, but there’s nothing like taking a bull home to bring out a person’s inner CEO.
We found George back at the east fence, gathered his harem and headed west.
He trudged along, complacent, until we passed a few of his escape ponds.
Then the fun began, dodging, pivoting and racing neck-to-neck.
George spotted a new pond and his beady eyes lasered in on his reusable escape plan.
He dove into the water.
Flashbacks of a few years ago when I jumped off my floundering horse so he could pull himself out of the sucking mud warned me to stay on dry ground.
I used my loudest school teacher voice on George.
George stepped deeper.
I watched him sink until the water touched his belly.
He glanced back at me, then scrutinized the steep sides of the bank.
His eyes divulged that he maybe, possibly, might have made a poor choice, but he couldn’t admit it now, as bulls are not prone to do.
He stepped deeper into the pond.
The water covered his shoulders.
He started to swim like a turtle, a massive head poking up through the murky water.
My laughter scared my cows.
George swam to a gravelly spot and climbed out of the pond.
We gathered another harem for him, just to patch his ego.
George ducked and dodged a few more times before we put him through the gate, but he didn’t dive into another pond.