humor

I don’t know what you all do before church on Sunday morning. Sleep in, maybe?

Sunday School down here doesn’t start until ten. We kinda have enough of our day in before that that I feel like I need to take a shower before we leave. : )

This past Sunday morning Wacko had her calf. She got her name honestly. If you’ve been on my list for very long, you know that there are new mama cows who will kill you. Wacko is one of those. : )

Her calf, a little bull, (I checked, because Watson gets confused about these things) was up and dry and Watson decided he wanted to tag her before we left for Sunday School.

Julia is really the only one of the four females in our house that takes any length of time to get ready.

Actually, I can get four small kids and myself bathed, showered and ready to go in the amount of time it takes Watson to shower and dress. I guess I said all that to say, Watson got the bander and ear ring and he and I rode in the Gator while the two little girls rode on the back as we went out to the field where Wacko was with her calf.

Julia didn’t come because she was grooming herself. In her defense, the house was clean when we got back. : )

So, I’ve talked before about how Watson and I band and tag calves. Well, earlier last week, we developed a slightly new system while picking up one of the neighbor’s calves that wasn’t eating.

We had to throw it on the back of the Gator, which doesn’t have any brakes, so you can’t really stop on a hill. (Well, you can. Dr. A, our neighbor, did stop – to shut a gate – but the Gator wasn’t there when he went to get back in. The Lord kinda guided it on its descent down through the cow pasture, and it didn’t hit any cows, or people – it went right between Watson and the two little girls – but a nice, old Virginia Pine has a couple of big gouges in it from acting as a makeshift emergency brake – that was just a few yards from the creek. Our Gator is currently in pieces at James River. But nothing died, which makes it a good day, and Dr. A is slightly wiser. ; )

Anyway, our new system, which we use when Watson wants to put the calf on the back of the Gator, is very similar to our old one – Watson gets out and picks up the calf. I get out and make sure the charging mama cow doesn’t kill my husband. (So, before we get out, I’ll say something like, Not sure I’m feeling it today; we’re all paid up on your life insurance policy, right? and Watson, who knows what it takes, will say, I was thinking about taking you out for lunch.)

So, we’ve used this new system successfully at the neighbor’s a couple of times (those stories some other time) but we’ve never done it here.

However, Wacko earned her nickname – she’s one of those mothers who will kill you first and ask questions later, so we (Watson) decided it would be better to put her calf on the back of the Gator and take it somewhere, bringing it back to Wacko when we were done.

Wacko isn’t dumb (we’re dealing with cows, so dumb is relative) and she’s keeping her calf pretty close to her.

Finally, Watson gets the Gator between Wacko and her calf, but we’re on a little rise, so as he’s jumping out to grab the calf, he said to me, “Put your foot on the brake.” I was already moving and I had it covered, sliding over to the driver’s side, ready to go fast as soon as the calf is on the back.

Watson grabs the calf about twenty yards in front of the Gator, but Wacko had swung a wide circle around and was catching up to him pretty fast.

Watson goes lumbering by the drivers’ side of the Gator, awkwardly carrying the calf, and Wacko, charging behind him, is closing the gap which is maybe three feet. There’s no way Watson is stopping and getting that calf on the back without Wacko crushing him against the side of the Gator.

Directly after Watson goes by, I open the Gator door, which causes Wacko to swerve, but she’s still going full speed. Maybe a second goes by and I know if I don’t do something, I really am going to be collecting life insurance.

So, I explode out of the Gator.

Now, in case this ever happens to you, if a cow is charging and you want to face off and change her direction, you need to be loud and scary.

I don’t know what your kids would say about you, but mine will say I’m definitely scary.  Loud? Not so much, but I guess I was thinking, would I rather have life insurance or lunch?

Seriously, I wasn’t sure if I could change her direction or not, but I figured at the very least I could run into her and slow her down a little. I yell, wave my arms and rush Wacko, kind of at an angle, and yeah, I’m both loud and scary.

Wacko swerves, and I follow alongside of her, pushing her out in a semi-circle.

I was feeling pretty good because I thought I’d saved my husband’s life.

I was pretty surprised to glance over and see the Gator rolling alongside us around that semi-circle. (Oh, I was supposed to have my foot on the brake. Kinda forgot about that. Thankfully the wheels were turned.)

Watson has somehow dodged behind the Gator, and is on other side (still carrying the calf). I can’t see him, but I can hear him yelling.

(If I run over my husband, I don’t think I get the life insurance. I’ll have to check the fine print. Maybe I can get Jay to read it to me. I’m sure he can make the fine print on a life insurance policy sound fabulous. : )

Watson is yelling something like, “You dingbat! You took your foot off the brake.” and I might or might not have said something like, “I should have let her kill you.” I’m thinking I should have gone for the life insurance over lunch (and I think Watson was thinking he should have married a woman with a brain).

So, yeah, we’re having this “conversation” while Wacko is still trying to kill me and Watson is still chasing the Gator, carrying the calf.

Thankfully my youngest daughter has a personality very similar to my oldest son – they were both born without fear. She jumps out of the back of the Gator, catches the door, which I never shut, and swings in, stomping on the brake.

Also, thankfully, my other daughter has been with us long enough to know to hold on, so she doesn’t fall off the back when it stops abruptly.

Watson throws himself and the calf over the side of the Gator, yells, “I’m in! Let’s GO!” I dive across my daughter, who for some strange reason has put the Gator in reverse.

lol

Back when I was a kid on the farm, we used to separate the piglets from their mother, castrate them and throw them back in the pigpen. If you were good, and did it fast enough, the piglets didn’t even have time to squeal. If they squealed…I’ve seen an eight hundred pound mama sow go vertical and look for all the world like she was going to scale a six foot gate.

Pigs are a lot different than cows (their teeth are bigger, for one) and if she’d have come over the fence, I didn’t have a thought in my head about charging her. I was a decent sprinter in high school, and I knew I could out run my sisters, which was exactly what I planned to do. We got the piglet tossed back in the pen, which calmed her down, but it’s nuts the things a mama will do for her baby.

It’s also scary.

So, Watson is on the back of the Gator, holding the calf. Our daughter is driving the Gator backwards, directly toward Wacko. I’m sitting beside her saying, “Go faster!” but what I mean is, “Go faster forward!”

Watson is in the back, not quite eye to eye with Wacko, shouting something which, interpreted, means, “My sweet, loving daughter. Please put the Gator in a forward gear – any forward gear – and drive as fast as you can away from this mama cow, and ignore your own mother who is just trying to collect life insurance on me.”

That’s not exactly what he said, but this is a family publication. : )

I don’t know what the calf was thinking, but I’m pretty sure Wacko was thinking there was enough room on the back of the Gator for her.

Yeah. My daughter jerked to a

stop, slammed it into forward something and floored it.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one of those movies where you have a whole parade of people chasing each other? Maybe Runaway Bride? (I’ve never seen it, but I think I saw a preview…)

Anyway, we didn’t exactly have a parade, but if you could have been standing beside our pasture field, you’d have seen the Gator go flying from the upper end, through a very confused-looking herd of cows with Wacko going as fast as she could behind us.

I think we’d gone about a half a mile (and left Wacko in the dust after two hundred yards) before my husband got himself to quite yelling, “Go faster, go faster, go faster.”

So, yeah, we tagged the little guy, banded him and ended up being early for Sunday School. (Have you ever sat in Sunday School and wondered what everyone else there did that morning? No? Just me, then, I guess. ; )

And, in case you all are wondering, Watson was a little annoyed with me, so, not only did I not get any life insurance, I also had to cook my own lunch.

Thanks so much for spending time with me today!