His Work is Never Done

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.

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.