GRAVETTE — I have seen about every wreck that can happen with being in the cattle business. Having been on the receiving end of many wrecks, I can attest that most of them are dire and some fatal. I have seen a 900 lb. steer try to jump a fence that was tall enough to keep antelope corralled and it was on a Sunday. He hung up, one leg dangled and we knew this was a fatal wreck immediately.

I figured it was going to be a bad day at Black Rock kind of day but my close relative got the butcher to open up and we saved most of the beef. I was real leery of the meat, having had a steer saved and butchered that turned out to be a dark cutter. That old dude weighed in at 1,200 pounds of cut up meat. I fed a large amount of that to old Dog and a pack of coyotes! But, the meat was good.

The bad part of the wreck was that cattle were up, high market, and we had just had a steer butchered! Oh well, some can’t win for losing. That time was not a complete loss anyway so some of the folks who had seen better days got a few packages of beef and we had several hamburger feeds that depleted the pile of hamburger.

I turned a bunch of old cows in on a field of Bermuda grass that looked like a picture in a Farm Journal. I walked around the fence and on my way back to the truck I saw a big cow go down. She was dead in a matter of minutes. I figured it was a heart attack but then two more went down and I headed for the telephone to call the vet. No service so had to go to the house. The close relative got the vet on the hornand he was out to the farm in record time.

We lost five good big cows because they packed their guts and the wonderful grass produced a poison that killed them almost instantly. You can bet I never turned a bunch in on Bermuda that tall and lush again.

We had had horses knocked over like wooden pegs by yearling heifers that panicked and both of the male offspring tried to head them off. The one got ahead of the herd and just got hit hard. The other offspring swung around and jerked his little light-mouthed horse down. Both of the horses and both of the offspring got big lessons that day and, thank the good Lord, lived to appreciate them.

The spooker of the stampede was none other than the female offspring prancing out to show off her new dress and parasol to match. She flipped the dang thing open and closed a few times and that was all the stressed out heifers could take!

It is my opinion, and everyone has one, these beautiful spring days can cause us to put aside our regular caution and try things we know better than to do. Old men shouldn’t climb windmill towers to repair them, reach into prairie dog holes to see if they can catch a little one or throw hats in under close relative’s feet as a surprise! That is plumb crazy, just asking for a wreck to occur and it could be deadly and even fatal!

Take care until we meet again!

-Bill

Bill is the pen name used by the Gravette author of this weekly column.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 04/21/2010