"...to my mind, the only possible pet is a cow. Cows love you. They will be your friends forever..." -- Bill Bryson

  During today's transfer to a hospital procedure, we were on a busy suburban freeway (360 by Six Flags if you know the area). It was the last place I expected to see a cattle trailer with 4-5 head in it. But, having been in a similar situation, you use the fastest route from Point Drool to Point Moo.

 

 A section of land is 640 acres. I don't know the original size of my family's property, but it had been whittled down to 80 acres by the time we were handling it. The place had a ramshackle shed, a two-room house and a well with a windmill that had broken years before. I don't know how deep it was but we dragged a big sheet of tin over it so nothing would fall in. My granddad died up there from a heart attack while trying to shore up a dam on the original cattle tank.

 We built a 2/1 house, an actual barn and dug a second cattle watering tank/swimming hole. We raised some cattle and some hay and sold just enough of each to buy more and break even. We were hobby ranchers with our actual house in town but enough work to do to provide Real World lessons about how hard a life doing this fulltime actually is. It's something for which I'll always be grateful. 

 I learned to drive on the tractor in the photo when I was 11. It needed work so dad got behind me on back roads and would sling his arm out the window to signal when I needed to turn. In flat-out 4th gear, this Ford 8N would top out about 22 mph, so not much chance of getting hurt. But I felt like I was flying.

 The summer I turned 14, dad asked if I wanted to "help" him put up about 1/4 mile of new barbed wire fence and get paid for it. Damn right. Turns out most of his "help" was appear occasionally with a Falstaff to tell me how I could improve my work. Not that he was lounging around, as he'd be moving the cattle to another pasture or something. But you learn to do a lot of talking to yourself and just thinking. 

....but I tell ya -- even a gulp of lukewarm cheap beer tastes mighty damn good on a 102-degree day. 

 Sometimes mom would show up with brisket. Other times we'd go into Lake Dallas and grab something before Lake Dallas turned into Lake Dallas. They had a hardware store I'm sure carried at least one of every hardware item going back to Reconstruction.

 Elemental to all this was the cattle. We never had more than, oh, 30 or so. Never more than one bull. Cow herds are a very female societies and observation quickly shows their combination of genetics, socialism and eugenics.

 There is always a lead cow, but she is not usually at the front. That's reserved for those considered weaker and thus more prone to danger. The bull(s) linger at the rear but will defend the herd if called on. The lead cow gets a sense of direction from the others. Quite fascinating, even on a small scale. 

 I miss it so, but at least for me it's an era gone by. I'm glad my kids got to experience it briefly. The place is now Just Another Subdivision.

...and they tore down my goddamned fence.

"...it's been quite a party, ain't it?" -- Augustus McCrae