Jake the Golden Dog – Memorial
The rising sun highlights the heavy laden clouds moving slowly across the crystal blue Texas sky. I still mourn. On November 5th, Jake died. It’s been three weeks now. I know I have to talk to him. It’s been hard, Jake, to think about all these years we’ve been together. I often wondered what your life had been like before you showed up one morning on my porch when you were about eight months old. Your double coat was soft as silk, and I worried you belonged in the city, not on a ranch. Your big brown eyes begged to stay. Why did you refuse to get in a vehicle when we needed to take you to the vet for your shots? You and I took up the whole backseat with you wrapped in a blanket! Your skin was so soft, I could never use clippers to cut the...
Lonely Mr Bull
His herd is gone now, and I think he’s coping as best he can. Every day, he walks well over two miles, but not before breakfast! After his morning feed, he comes out here to visit with his new best friends. Watch him, the hens are clucking like they all have something to tell him. See him nod his head? He does, just like he understands what they say. If I walk nearer to him, he’ll start to get up. I found if I back up a step or two, he’ll stay where he is. I just leave him alone to visit. He’ll get up when he’s ready for his walk. I just stopped by him for a picture...
Cock and Bull!
Stay subscribed for more country diversions! Critters go through life just as we do. First hand, I can see many circumstances and challenges sometimes mirror ours. Some of those lives are aided and abetted by my opportunity to do so. I don’t mean I have total control – I simply have influence through my protective efforts. The rooster is now between two worlds. He lost his chicken yard privileges because he attacked a defenseless hen. There, he was #1, where he chose his mates, had food and water readily available, was protected from invasion of wild critters, and appeared happy and content for a long time. Now, chickens don’t spend much time thinking, so he saw no consequences of his assault. He was evicted, and cannot understand why. However,...
A very bad rooster!
Maybe it’s the wayward tail feather that gave him away, or gave him a complex that made him do it! You’ve heard jokes about Texas “Chicken Ranches,” well here’s a real story about a hen house on a Texas ranch! We adopted a small flock from a friend moving to the city. Six hens and three roosters – living and thriving together friends. Right? Until today, that is. I was on my way to the chicken yard at regular feeding time when I heard such a commotion. I immediately thought a critter must have gotten in with them. I ran in time to see this one had a hen pinned to the ground and plucking her feathers out. She was screaming, and the other hens were running around trying to get away from the scene. I threw open the gate reaching to...
The Daydream
The wildflowers that spring were abundant – the cattle foraged as if they enjoyed the table decorated for them by mother nature. Fortunately, the wildflowers were going to seed at the same time forecasters promised rain – which was the perfect time to mow and free the pasture to concentrate on grasses for the summer ahead. The tractor with the huge mower on the back offered no protection from the sun. I had been mowing almost three hours and the sun was getting higher and hotter. Finally found my next pass ended up next to the woods, so I shut it down, and walked my sweat and red face into the woods. Under the trees I felt a slight breeze and it felt ten degrees cooler. Walking into the woods about fifty feet, my ears adapted to the absence of the...
My girls left the ranch today…
I woke up this morning at five-thirty expecting the cattle truck to be here by eight. The breeze felt chilly as I went out to turn on the water hose connected to the plastic trash can we move around for temporary watering. As I made my way to the corral to spend time with my cows for the last time, across the barn I heard the roosters crow as I closed the metal gate. They were waiting for me. My husband had gathered them up last night and bedded them down with hay and cattle cubes in the corral adjacent to the house. We could hear and see them if they stressed. We don’t want to sell them, but we have no choice. They are losing weight in spite of the large feed bill we have incurred to keep them healthy during this drought. I sat for a long time on the...
