The time has come. My family and I are finally selling our cattle herd. Momentous day, how I have long awaited your arrival. I'll begin by saying that growing up on a prairie farm replete with bovines is an upbringing unlike any other. Many were the times I would look up at that cold blue Canadian sky and ask God: WHY ME? Let me explain.
First and foremost, cows are silly creatures. I'm not sure whether it was when they were first domesticated by humans some 7 000 years ago or in the period of selective breeding since but it hardly matters. Cows are dumb. Perhaps we're the dumb ones for thinking that its worthwhile to keep them around, and believe me, I have thought approx 1.7 billion times that my dad was the dumb one for thinking raising cattle is a desireable career choice. They do taste really good. And they are cute when they are little. But then they grow up and become a mass of blood, muscle and shit that has no functional cortex. If I offend any animal-lovers out there I apologize. But clearly you have not spent as much time around cattle as I have.
Life on a cattle farm follows a yearly routine. In the winter they are kept in a wintering area somewhat sheltered from the wind and snow and are fed hay each and every day, as well as copious amounts of grain. At our farm we would haul like 12 20-litre pails of grain each feeding, twice daily. Straw bales are spread for their bedding. Snowballs and ice-hardened manure clumps are thrown by kids and adults alike to vent frustration.
In the spring most cattle herds calve and it is a more stressful than usual time for the farmer, keeping an eye on his/her herd to watch for any cows having trouble because pushing out a gangly fifty or sixty pound calf is pretty hard for even the biggest and loosest vagina. Cows often forget which calf is theirs or that they have a calf at all, and so it is the farmer's job (or very often, his son's) to take care of any lost or wayward babies. Bottle-feed them. Comfort them. Protect them from coyotes. Teach them how to moo-ve on up. See what I did there?
Once the grass gets a bit of a start they are let out to pasture, likely every cattle farmer's favourite time of year because they don't require daily maintenance. But if your fences are as poorly maintained as my father's usually are, you basically have to go out and repair them all the time and we constantly had neighbours calling us all the time that our cattle are out in so-and-so's field, please come get them or we will shoot them, yada yada.
The fall is usually characterized by sorting and selling. Now chasing and sorting cattle is an art form, at least in my mind. If you have never found yourself in the same small pen as a group of cows and are saddled with the job of sorting them into seperate groups, who you are and what you do in the real world doesn't matter. You're in Cowtown now baby. And the residents are a lot bigger and dumber than you. So you have to be smart. Agile. Move with the flow when necessary, but redirect it when you have to. Like the cantina in Mos Eisley, this place can get a little rough. Its all about anticipation. It's a bit difficult to explain without proper demonstration, but effectively where a cow is looking, is where she's gonna go. Whether she bolts, canters, walks or doesn't move all has to do with your immediate proximity to the animal, the volume of your voice, and what kind of body language you are using. Plain dumb luck is also a factor. My dad told me that cattle can recognize who is coming towards them by the way you walk, and how your voice sounds. He has used a particular call to get them to come to him my entire life. If I was to try and put it into writing it would be something akin to 'ho-vass'. When I call them I don't get much of a response, but when he does they all come.
As I write this I wonder if anyone else has ever blogged about the intricacies of raising cattle. Writing is not something that most ranchers do. If there are other bovine-bloggers out there, hit me up! We can talk about chasing techniques, your best tale involving an enraged bull, and the finer points of manure composition. But I digress. Growing up the way I did has made me who I am, and I would not trade it for anything. If my dad sounds like a lunatic, it is because its true. I think he wanted me to grow up much the same way he did, and looking back, why wouldn't he. Farmers are the salt of the earth. I would challenge anyone to find a more hard-working, patient, generous and good-natured man than my father. And so the time comes that our cattle are finally leaving. And although I'm pretty glad overall that I won't have to struggle out in -40 degree weather to unfreeze the waterer anymore, or choke through clouds of black flies in the blistering summer heat, a part of me is really gonna miss our cows and all they put me through.
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