Service

Words do not always mean the same thing here in the country.  There is a long, rich history of men and women in the country, who have given of themselves in service to this country.  They are deeply respected, as they should be for their sacrifice.  My Loving Spouse keeps muttering about how he needs to service the tractor before the winter comes.  I honestly do not know what he plans to do to it, but I am pretty sure it will include stuff like oil and grease.  Believe it or not, but my cow Agnes also needed to be serviced.  This sort of ‘tune up’ involves a bull.  Luckily for me, Our Friend the Farmer had taken his bulls off the fields where his cows are and offered their ‘services‘ for Agnes.

Step one was getting Agnes loaded up.  Our Friend the Farmer can move 180 head of cattle with about 4 people.  You’d think we could move one cow and two calves with the same number.  Our plan was to run Agnes into the loading chute and then hold her there while we encouraged/ran/pushed/chased the two little calves in behind her.  Number One Son, Number One Wife and THE Grandson were here to help.  THE Grandson didn’t really help all that much, but in fairness to him, he’s only been walking for a little while now.  Agnes was pretty sure she did not want to go, where I wanted her to go, so if you are wondering how fast a cow can run, it is actually pretty fast.  I had the bike to move her with until it ran out of gas and My Loving Spouse and Number One Son were my cow ‘encouragers’, attempting to keep her going in the direction I wanted.  I wouldn’t exactly call it a three-ring circus, but it might have looked like three clowns attempting to outsmart one cow.  Eventually, we got her in and then mostly had to stand out of the way, as the little girls ran into the chute to be with their Mama.

With the herd loaded in the trailer, we drove a mile down the road to Our Friend the Farmer’s winter field for bulls.  In this field are 4 big, brawny, beautiful specimens of male cattle and one old horse (which is a different story).  In the nano second it took Agnes to exit the trailer, those bulls were perked up and strutting their stuff, attempting to sniff out the new babe in the field faster than any other bull.  A few bulls started sparring with each other, you’d think we had just dropped a Playboy model onto a deserted island full of drunken Frat boys.  Our Friend the Farmer says, sometimes the two strongest bulls start sparring and arguing with each other and while they are not looking the smarter bull moves in and services the cow.

We have been driving by and keeping an eye and Agnes and the girls.  All seems well in the winter field.  Sometimes when we go by, Agnes has been hanging out with this big old black bull…but recently we noticed that no one is paying any attention to her anymore.  We can only assume she got serviced and is no longer interesting or we might have missed her service window.  We’re not sure and no one is talking….I guess what goes on in the winter field stays in the winter field.