Mar. 15, 2003 ~ A sad day in Mooville
I hate it when we have to sell the babies, but that is supposedly the whole point of the cattle business, to sell cattle and at some point, make money. Husband hauled four big calves to the auction this morning, with no mishaps reported.
We have had some ridiculous things happen while transporting calves, the worst being when they got OUT of the trailer while we were driving over a bridge. Said bridge was a mile and a half long, spanning a lake. Did I mention that we were driving about 45 or 50 mph at the time? On a two-lane bridge, over a lake? The trailer is wooden, and one calf broke through some of the boards, then fell completely out and tumbled onto the highway, skidding on its side, but miraculously surviving. Who knows how the other drivers kept from hitting him; I guess they saw what was happening and slowed down. I think there was just one other calf, that's all I remember, but he came out next, and he also survived. Traffic came to an abrupt halt. Well-meaning drivers tried to herd the steers back to the trailer, but Husband wanted them off the bridge -- preferably not in the lake. He knew they wouldn't voluntarily go back into that trailer. I drove the truck and trailer to the end of the bridge and found a wide spot to turn around, while Husband ran after the escapees, and then the REAL fun began.
We spent that afternoon trying to round up those calves, with little success. They had gone into dense woods near the lake. Husband had a rope and hoped to rope them, but I kept wondering what on earth he planned to do with them if he caught them. They probably weighed 600 pounds each, and trust me, it's hard enough to wrestle with a tiny calf, much less one the size of a baby elephant. The calf would win, no contest. There was really no way he was going to swing that rope in those woods, anyway. The brush was dense and filled with briers. At the end of the day, someone remarked that Husband looked like he'd gotten into a fight with an alligator. He needed stitches, but being a guy, laughed that off. He still bears scars from that afternoon.
I had one or two bottles of water in the truck, but those didn't go far, in the Texas summer heat. We drank those in short order, and then we were in trouble. Serious trouble. In the beginning, we did a lot of running and a lot of sweating, and we sure needed more to drink. Our clothes were sopping wet, our faces were red and streaked with dust. Husband was gasping for breath. I was reduced to approaching strangers at the lake, asking if they had any cokes or bottled water I could buy. The only folks around were a bunch of guys drinking beer, lots and lots of beer, and they were more than willing to share that, but it seemed unwise. They did have one coke, which they gave me, and one guy volunteered to go with me, along with his "cow dog" (note -- ha ha ha ha ha!) to try to help us catch the steers. The dog quickly went into the lake and the guy, who could barely stand up, much less walk, went off in search of him, and I went off in search of Husband. There was no fence around these woods, but geography helped us at least a little bit. We were on, what would you call it? The highway was on one side and the water was on two sides. Whatever you'd call that. I guess the lake formed a little cove there. The trick was keeping the calves from running onto the highway and to keep them close to the water, away from the part of the woods that went who knows where... because we figured we'd never catch them if that happened. The calves did get exhausted, right along with us, and they stopped and rested for awhile. I found Husband and gave him half the coke, then tried to guard "my" calf (we each were trying to deal with a calf), keeping it close to the water. After a while I wondered what was going to happen next. I mean, yes, we didn't want them to escape deeper into the woods, and we didn't want them to get hit on the highway, but, uh, what were we going to do with them, exactly? It's not like they were going to follow us back to the trailer.
Some kind folks stopped and tried to help us; they even went to a nearby feed store and bought a sack of feed, in hopes we could convince the calves to get into the trailer. Nice in theory, but no way. Those same nice folks, who had no money, took our last few bucks and bought us water, which probably kept us from having heat strokes.
I wound up using my cell phone to call the sheriff, who recommended some folks who might help us, and those cowboys, bless 'em, showed up about an hour later with three horses, ropes, and a big, long trailer. They roped the first calf in short order. Husband and one of the guys chased the calf out of the woods, toward the highway -- it was the only open area -- where it was my job to stand in the middle of the road and stop traffic. Sheesh. They roped that animal and then eventually got it into their trailer. But the other one, THAT one was the steer from hell. Two hours and two deputies later, after we learned that steers will, in fact, swim in a lake, we eventaully caught that beast. "We," by this time included two cowboys and a cowgirl, three horses, Husband, the two deputies, two good samaritans, and me. Our beer-drinking, coke-donating friend had long since disappeared. By the time we got that last calf into the truck, it was minutes away from complete darkness. We were beat. The cowboys were red and we were all soaked to the skin and filthy. Husband and I were bloody from the briers, and that last calf had to be dragged, literally dragged on his side and up into the trailer, because it was either that or shoot him. He wasn't going anywhere voluntarily, and we were all out of options. The cowboys kept the calves in the trailer at their place that night, and we went with our repaired trailer to their ranch to pick them up the next day. It was weeks till they were in good enough shape to sell, till the hair grew back in all the raw spots.
So that's why, whenever we go to auction, we always tell the calves before we leave, "NO swimming!" And we mean it.
Today's trip was uneventful. No one broke through the trailer, no one swam in the lake, no cowboys were called, and no alligators were fought. In our book, that qualifies as "happily ever after."
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