Dad loved to tell stories. I guess it rubbed off on me a little. In honor of Father’s Day, I will share one of his favorites. To set the stage a bit, Dad and Cal were checking pastures and had arrived at the replacement heifers. They were a beautiful set of registered purebred Angus heifers and Cal’s pride and joy.
The goal with heifers is to breed them to a smooth shouldered, easy calving bull that, come spring, the calf will just fall out when the heifer sneezes. This particular day, standing in the middle of those heifers, was the biggest, ugliest, over-muscled Charolais bull you have ever seen.
It could have been Cal’s vision of C-sectioning all his heifers. It could have been the thought of little white calves trotting around his black cows the following spring. It could have been the empty bag of nibs and Baby Ruth candy bar wrappers, but something snapped.
That Charolais had run the little heifer bull off to the creek, and he wasn’t about to give up his new found harem without a fight. Cal roared up to him with his old green GMC, honking, beating the door, and screaming things I just can’t write. The bull was up for the challenge. He blew snot, threw dirt, and head butted the front bumper. The 350 in that old Jimmy just about crawled out of the hood and Cal started winning the pushing match.
The bull decided to run and the chase was on. Cal would bust that bull right in the backside and send him end over teacups. The bull would right himself, take off on the run, and Cal would get him again. About the third time the bull got rolled, he waded out into the creek.
I will interject a note here. I’ve seen several bulls fight down on the creek, and apparently, the creek is sanctuary. When the bull that is losing wades into the creek, the fight’s over. Not that day.
That ol’ Charolais was standing out in the creek, panting, trying to recover, when Cal jumps out of the pickup and grabs a shovel. Unfortunately for the bull, it wasn’t blind rage, because Cal saw him just fine and brought the shovel down right between the bull’s eyes. The bull dropped like a rock.
Cal got back into the pickup and he and dad watched the bull struggle to his feet and stagger out of the creek and limp towards home. Dad says “You gonna tell ’em?” I can’t put Cal’s response in quotes, but it was along the lines of ‘no, they’ll just think he was in a bull fight’. “Are you kidding?” This was always dad’s favorite story ending…..”It says GMC on his ass, and Sears & Roebuck is stamped on his forehead! Somebody’s gonna notice.”
Farmer Dan's Food For Thought 