A singer/songwriter named Robert Earl Keen and his buddy,
Lyle Lovett, wrote a song called “The Front Porch Song” and in part of the
lyrics, he sings about a bull:
This old porch is
just a big ol' red and white Hereford bull
Standing under a mesquite tree in Agua Dolce
He just keeps on playing hide and seek with that hot August sun
He's sweating' and a-pantin'
Cause' his work is never done
Aw, no
I've known a whole lot of old bulls in my life
And their work is never done
It is summertime and although our bull, Chuck, is a registered Jersey bull and not a Hereford, those lyrics paint an accurate picture of the old boy. He plays hide and seek with the hot August sun, lounging in the shade of the Chinaberry trees against the south pasture before venturing out when it is a little cooler to eat grass. He likes to lay in the mud around the water trough. It helps cool him off.
Standing under a mesquite tree in Agua Dolce
He just keeps on playing hide and seek with that hot August sun
He's sweating' and a-pantin'
Cause' his work is never done
Aw, no
I've known a whole lot of old bulls in my life
And their work is never done
It is summertime and although our bull, Chuck, is a registered Jersey bull and not a Hereford, those lyrics paint an accurate picture of the old boy. He plays hide and seek with the hot August sun, lounging in the shade of the Chinaberry trees against the south pasture before venturing out when it is a little cooler to eat grass. He likes to lay in the mud around the water trough. It helps cool him off.
Chuck, like most bulls, likes to scratch his head on
posts. Unfortunately he really likes to
rub his head on the water trough in his pasture. It is made of a 30 gallon bucket that was
originally a molasses tub. If we allow
it to get half empty, Old Chuck knocks the water trough over, spilling 15 gallons of water into his mud hole, and then pushes the tub into the
fence destroying it. Of course
that means he’s out of water until we get there and get another tub filled with
water. Not very smart on his part!
Yesterday I asked the boys to come help me. Chuck with all his head scratching, somehow
was able to remove his halter. I walked
through the whole pasture until I found it lying in the grass. I tried to put it on him, but he wasn’t
cooperative. Russ and Benjamin helped me
run him into the corral and we were able to put a rope around his neck and put
his halter back on. Old boy is
growing. He’s muscular and solid. He is going to be a force to be reckoned with. I won't turn my back on him.
Chuck (El Toro) |
Then we put him back in the pasture that he shares with
little Buckwheat, our Nubian buckling goat.
We keep the males sequestered in their pasture, “male jail,” because at any given
time, at least one of our cows and goats are in heat and it becomes a circus out there with hormones flowing and everyone jumping on one another. Crazy, I tell you. Keeping the males separated helps us manage
breeding.
We want to plan calving and kidding so that everyone
delivers at the same time. That way
calving, nursing, and weaning all happens at once versus staggered out. We didn’t do that this year and it sure made
things difficult, making it hard for us to get away for a few days. We won’t make that same mistake again, if we can
help it. Chuck will be a year old in December. We'll try to put him with the girls when he turns one year old and shoot for September calving.
Robert Earl Keen’s song about a bull’s work being never
done is accurate on a larger herd where the bull is in charge of an entire herd
of cows to service. Chuck only has four
cows in his “harem,” so his work will be done relatively quickly. Same thing for Buckwheat and his three goats
to take care of. But one thing’s for
certain – ‘ol Chuck is playing hide and seek with that hot August sun, sweating
and panting and longing for fall.
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