LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Midnight serenade
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Midnight serenade
Whatever you do , do not name the calves .
That ’ s one of the lessons a kid learns when his dad runs some 200 head of cattle and he and his three brothers keep a small herd of 4-H cows to help pay for college later on .
One day you are bottle feeding a calf orphaned by a negligent mother , and about six months later you are eating a fat , juicy hamburger – quite possibly the best you have ever had in your young life .
“ Where ’ s Cletus ?” you wonder while using a second napkin to wipe your mouth .
Not to say cattle are not named . They are . Especially those 4-H heifers , the cows that you keep to breed and produce the next generation . They become part of the family , not unlike the family dog . But you never name the steers . Minus the necessary jewelry , they are just a butcher ’ s diagram , a large package of primal cuts of chuck , sirloin , tenderloin , shanks , round and rib-eyes , walking about the pasture as if they once owned the place , which perhaps they did but no more , bulking up on hay in the winter , grass in the summer and supplements year round .
Dad always held back a couple of cattle while trucking out the others to market . He ’ d take those to the Bagley Locker in back of Vaux Grocery to be butchered and , at the end of the day , we ’ d have a freezer filled for a family trying to manage a self-sufficient farming operation . And much of our life on the farm was spent in pursuit of that lifestyle from feeding the chickens ( another impossibly dumb animal ) to shearing the sheep and weeding and watering Mom ’ s rather large garden that supplied us with most every vegetable you ’ d find on the table in a year-long series of Sunday dinners .
But the cows ? The girls especially bred to show well at the Guthrie County Fair to bring home the blue ribbon ? Yes . They were special and they got names . Fancy names , too .
On the Cain farm , Royal Heiress was top cow . She , indeed , brought home the ribbons and , the rare exception , was not so dumb .
She was the oldest son ’ s prize heifer , a pretty white-faced Herford who always gave birth to the best calves . She was clever , too , which immediately separated herself from the lot . ( Just my opinion , but the great majority of cattle , boys and girls , are large , obnoxious and dumb . OK . Some are not so obnoxious .) Royal knew where the weaknesses were in the wire fencing running all about the place , around the main feedlot , the grove just beyond the farmhouse , the narrow path out to the 80 acres of virgin prairie where the cattle spent their summers , grazing on switchgrass , big bluestem , yellow coneflower , black-eyed Susan and Indiagrass among a veritable smorgasbord of grasses and flowers .
But the 4-H cows , about a dozen , were separated from the main herd and kept in a smaller pasture near the house that did not offer quite the selection of entrees . So , when Royal got bored with the menu , she reminded us that the grass was always sweeter on the other side of the fence – and she found her way through whenever she was moved .
Getting back in where she could get a cool drink at the trough next to the well house ? Well , that was left to me . And that ’ s when she learned that she could just mosey on back to the big aluminum gate in the barnyard , beller for a little while until I woke from my sleep , turned on the light on the bedside table , slipped into a pair of blue jeans , grabbed a shirt , pulled on my boots , stumbled down the steps to the kitchen door and then off the porch and down to the barnyard , still wiping the sleep from my eyes , to open that gate so that Royal , with no nod of apology or appreciation , could go about her privileged if not somewhat tedious life .
And that was the routine she adopted when her appetite took her a wandering .
Then , apparently not satisfied with my response time , she decided , on her way back to the herd , to stop beneath my bedroom window , enunciating a couple of clear moos , serenading me until she saw the bedroom light come on . Then she was off , knowing I would soon follow , on a leisurely walk to the barnyard where she would not have to bide so much of her precious time waiting for me to show up .
Sorry to keep you waiting , Royal . Just count yourself lucky that you have a name .
J . Damon Cain is editor of West Virginia South and The Register-Herald in Beckley , W . Va . He is a fan of the San Francisco Giants , the Iowa Hawkeyes , good beer , black Labs and his family . Over the course of a 43-year career , he has won myriad journalism awards , including those for for writing , newspage design and photo editing .
Courtesy photo
4 � SOUTH � JULY-AUGUST ’ 23