Watch Out For The Ones That Appear Dead...

Right now we've got a cow in the barn that defies all explanation as to what has happened to her, but she's on day 5 of getting special treatment and seems to be getting to the point of just enjoying it and has no interest in getting better. More on her later I'm sure.

But I was thinking about another cow that was sorta like this one a couple years ago and the miraculous recovery she made.

This old girl had pretty much gone south on us, been catching her in the squeeze chute every other day for the past 5 or 6 days and loadin' her up with antibiotics, and a couple times before that as well. Had her at the vet's once and he came out once, so we'd pretty much thrown a whole tub of money at her in hopes of a recovery or at the very least, to feel good about her death.

So this particular morning I ran up to the farm to give her another load of LA 200, and she'd sorta gone past the point of being nice about wanting to go into the chute, she'd developed some pretty doggone rude behavior, but in she went and I loaded her up with LA and let her out. So now, my Uncle Robert and I are standing in the big open door of the barn that is open to the front corral, and I said that it looks like a done deal and we might as well throw some dirt on her to get her used to the idea. And Robert is just standing there nodding in agreement, 'cause folks, it really does look like the genuine last round-up for this old girl.

So while we look at her from about 25 feet away and talk about her, this usually gentle cow drops her head, digs in and here she comes with "Today is your day to die farmer man" in her eye.

Totally taken by surprise by this attack I yell an abrupt pleasantry and pick a direction to run, which just happens to be the opposite direction that Robert picks. So in true 3 stooges fashion, we run into one another, face to face, stagger backwards a couple steps, and then we both go in the other opposite direction.

By the time I jump behind a gate I've broken out in a case of the giggles and then I look out in the corral and there's Robert. We had one of those weird December frosty fogs that morning and everything you touched was slicker than snot on a doorknob, even the gate that Robert chose to climb up... Robert would put one foot up on the gate, lifted the other foot to get up on it and the other one would slip off, leaving him to start all over again with these short little "hops". This happened like 4 times before he gave it up.

Mind you, the cow had lost all interest in killing human beings and was just standing there with as quizzical of a look on her face as a cow can get, trying to catch her breath from her sudden outburst.

And me, the ever faithful and polite nephew... I was completely useless because I could no longer see thru the tears from laughin my hind end off. Robert...lol hanging on to the top of that gate and just spinning his legs like some kinda crazy Roadrunner man.

Lordy...