Horses, Hounds and Other Country Critters by Gayle Bunney

Author:Gayle Bunney
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-927051-50-4
Publisher: Heritage House
Published: 2012-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

11

I Can’t Resist a Good Bull

CATTLE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A big part of my life, from my 4-H steers that I loved dearly to the pail-bunter calf that I broke to ride when she was a yearling. I’ll never forget the stunning beauty of a newborn Jersey heifer calf with its big brown eyes and eiderdown-soft hair—far cuter than even a newborn whitetail fawn.

And Old Pete, my milk cow. Old Pete was so tame that she kept the grass mowed on the front lawn—and kept that lawn nicely fertilized too! I made the mistake of opening the house door and letting her into the kitchen to drink when the barn water was not working. She had waltzed through that doorway neat as a pin, then drank about 30 gallons from the kitchen sink, drinking it as fast as the open tap would give it. Unfortunately, she then didn’t fit back through the open doorway to freedom outside. Her swollen water-filled belly got stuck tight as a drum in the doorway. I was a’hollering to get going, and she was a’trying. Then that “fertilizer” started coming. It was not a pretty sight. I had someone come to fix the barn water the very next day.

I have always had a special feeling for bulls. My dad raised registered horned Herefords, as my grandfather also had. Dad was fussy about what was a good bull and what wasn’t, so when he kept a few back to raise and sell as two-year-olds to other breeders, you knew they were good bulls. Their pedigrees were the best; their conformation and disposition were the best.

Even as a young girl, I had a stubborn “my way or the highway” disposition. I suspect Dad only kept me because he had no choice in the matter, or perhaps because he wasn’t allowed to run me through a fall heifer-calf sale listed as a crossbred, good-looking but of questionable disposition. I was about 11 years old when I got it into my head that if I couldn’t have things my way, I would just run away from home. Of course, I decided to do it during a savage prairie blizzard. I bundled up and stormed out of the house into a sheer whiteout of blowing snow and howling wind. Being born on the prairies, I knew how to stay on course and not drift with the wind. If you let the wind push you in a whiteout blizzard, you’ll be out on the open prairie awful quick and then you’re toast.

What do you mean the bull doesn’t like me? Look how friendly he is! MARGO MORTON

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