When my neighbors referred to a person begining a business in agriculture, they said he/she was ‘goin’ farming. Kind of like Columbus sailing off into uncharted waters, and just about as risky.
“Are you goin’ farming?”, they asked me when we bought two milk cows and some bull calves.
If cattle behind fences signify farming, I was some kind of farmer. However, I am not sure I would choose a career in agriculture if I had my druthers, because it so often includes bovines.
As a matter of fact, I do like cattle, and have had them around for most of my life. Yet, they are hard to love in the way that a person might love a dog or cat.
LOVE ON THE ROCKS!
To be honest, human affection for bovines quickly becomes rocky, because of their continual manipulating and jockeying for power.
Life with cattle was an ongoing chess game, in which I, the farmer, found myself ‘checked’ at every turn unless constantly vigilant. If one loses control of the situation for a moment, the chaos is self-explanatory. The shucking, jiving and conning at scheduled milking times always kept me aware of possibilities not in my favor.
Cattle are fine body-language and, in fact, psychic communicators, expressing themselves in complete sentences via thought transference.
I dare any cat or dog to accomplish that!
Some examples of whacky bovine excuses I’ve received telepathically in my years of farming might be these:
“I didn’t SEE the open gate! That’s why I ran through the fence.”
Conversely:
“You left the gate open! That’s why I ended up in the neighbor’s pasture, sticking out like a sore thumb among the registered Holsteins.”
“See what a healthy little calf I am! Watch me cut and run!”
“I know I swing my head around dangerously when you want to hook up my collar for milking. It’s all because of the flies!”
“Why are you jumping around? Why, I had no idea I was standing on your foot!”
“It’s okay if you forgot to untie my switchy tail after milking. I’ll just leave anyway and take the barn wall with me.”
“What?? I was supposed to eat this…stuff? I can’t eat it now! I turned it into a mattress last night.”
“How did I know you had just cleaned the gutter?”
And last, but not least, with a smooth bovine grin:
Bet you’re glad I’m dehorned!!”
Excuses aside, cattle have a strong sense of economics, and will work for pay. In spite of all the blood, sweat and tears involved in putting up the stuff, hay constitutes minimum wage. Wages rise accordingly to 50 pounds of dry cow mineral at $75 a crack; added to that delicacy, mixed grain atop tasty silage. Silage consists of shredded, fermented green corn, which can become mandatory once tasted.
My history book says oxen settled the West, but I’m curious as to how people fit into those wagons with all the necessary cattle ‘paychecks’ piled inside.
Of course, perhaps those long-ago bovines were content to work for minimum wage in the interest of western expansion.
Perhaps a little tightening up around my farm would have…!
Oops! Was that the milk pail Petunia just happened to step in? Of course, it was full! She had no idea!
#going farming#bovinemanipulation#careerinagriculture
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