Daisy-One Horn and Charger the Cows with Personality



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The cane was one of our cows favorite meals. It was also my favorite meal to feed them. I could use the tractor to feed. The cane shocks were brought on the trailer to a spot beside the outside toilet. We nailed pipes between two trees and laid the cane bundles in a tent shape on the pipes. It was a long version of the cane shocks that we made in the fields. The ones in the field resembled Indian tee-pees. Each time I feed can I was to throw out fifteen bundles. Most of the time we had twelve or thirteen head of cattle. The was all the twenty acres at the house would substain. The grass in summer on this land produced almost enough for the small heard we kept. If the grass got eat down to the ground we had to move just a few of them down to the creek bottom. This happened nearly every summer. Every summer there was some kind of problem that would arise in the moving. We hooked them two at a time to the two row plow. Putting a bradle on the ones we were taking seemed not so hard. The task of getting it off was more of a problem. The trick was get the bradle loose before you unhooked the rope from the plow. Catching the cow in a creek bottom with no catching pen was difficult. One Horn was a Jersey cow that got loose and we could not catch that day to remove the harness around her nose. Injured cows were one of my great concerns as a child. Doctoring cows was something I got into. The cows were left at the bottom until late summer. This was when the grass began to dry. Taking hay or cane down the washed out road was not even an issue, even though we did choose to do things the hard way lots of the time. One Horn was left most of the summer with the bradle around her nose. On a trip after a big washing rain we went to the bottom to check on them. The investigation concluded that the rope had dug into her nose and had magots crawling all in it. It was summer and there were flys everywhere. We had to take her right then to the pasture at the house to doctor the deep ditch dug around her whole face. She was one of the meaner cows and did not want us spraying the stuff that would get the magots to come out. This was fascinating to watch. As soon as the spray touched the area infected by the worms they would come out by the hundreds. Crazy to see all those wiggling worms at once. We finally got her well enough to take to the sale. She was one of our milk cows and it was a big thing that we had to loose a milk cow just because we did not check back on her soon enough. She was called One Horn because she had only one horn. The horn she had was somewhat of a nub. Now she had a big scar around her face. One cow we named Charger, because when we tried to ride her she would charge at the other cows to try and knock us off her back.



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  Daisy was the cow that if you sat on her head she would throw you into the air. New boyfriends are always hotter for you at first, this one was watching me from the parking lot of Corum's Chapel Church. I was feeding the cows as I did everyday. I was also, playing with the cows as I did everyday. Daisy was one of my favorites even though she was one of the meanest. I was dressed in my cow feeding clothes, bright yellow rain ready overalls. There was no reason for me to change the way I went about feeding the cows. I had no idea I was being watch. I twisted the tails of each I passed by while busting open the hay bales I was feeding them. I sat on Daisy's head and let her throw me as high as I would go. This is a tad strange for a teenage girl, but making the best of all my chores was how I always did it. The surprise came as I was climbing over the fence, muddy and wet; the black truck that I knew well was pulling in the driveway. I had been busted messing with cows in front of someone I would rather have impressed in a different way. It did not matter anyway. He really thought that he was all that, he lived in a big ole' house on the river. He even asked my why we didn't have a bigger house. I really thought that we had a big enough house. He is homeless now I think. Amazing how things go round.