What's Under My Hat: All in a day's work

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Published on Wednesday, 09 November 2011 14:18

By Monte Tucker

Howdy friends and neighbors.  I mentioned a while back about my trouble getting an article out every week lately and it still continues because the computer is still in the baby’s room.  Shhhh! He’s asleep so read quietly…  Hopefully after Christmas I can get back on a weekly schedule.

This past week I had a load of eastern Oklahoma miss-fit bull calves arrive at my oasis, spa and buffet.  It was a routine processing that goes on quite often at Tucker Cattle Co., except for this time.  Oh, I had the devil calf himself come into my possession last week!  He blended in with all the others except he held his ol’ limi-cross head a little higher.  So, being the professional bovine relocation and transformation specialist that I am, I promptly and humanely guided him into the Temple Grandin approved “tub and alley” system at my processing facility.   He did very well for a first timer but that’s when his proverbial un-digested food bulk hit the ol’ fan!  This red son of a biscuit eater was very impatient and proceeded to leap over the other cattle that were properly waiting their turn for, well let’s say vaccination, inoculation, worm-i-fa-cation, identification, and of course, castration or more politically correct, “socialization!”   But oh no, he had to attempt climbing over the other cattle, climbing out, and then rooting under. And finally, somehow, he managed to completely flip himself over and was laying on his back, tits up in my single alley lead-up chute!

The commotion was like the earthquake in Oklahoma City!  Ol’ red was bellowing and thrashing like a Wall Street protester whose I-pad just locked up while trying to tweet his dislike for Starbucks because they forgot his organic, all natural cream!  But, no big deal, this cowboy has been there done that before (not protest Wall Street – I’ve had a calf flip over in the chute) as has my trusty side-kick, Roper.  My ultra humane engineered alleyway system has well thought out latches that open one side of the alley to allow a calf to roll over and get back up on their own.  So while Roper was opening the side wall, I placed my hand on the opposite side while using my years of experience to detect any injuries that might need attention later.  And, that’s when red took special aim and proceeded to kick and smash three of my fingers against the steel pipe brace in the alley system!  OUCH!!!!!  I was standing there with two fingers in my mouth (and yes, there were billions of who knows what on my hands at that point) and red leaped to his feet and returned to the tub portion of my humane working facility.  Now I’m mad, which is never good when handling bovines!  I grabbed my five-foot-long fiberglass sorting stick, courtesy of Great Plains National Bank, and headed over to persuade red back into the chute.  Well, red spun around to make his way back into the single alley and hit the tub gate, on which the latch had some slack and again the steel pipe top rail hit me in the forehead!  I think that was after red somehow pinched my sorting stick in the railing and broke it into a million fibrous pieces!

Details are a bit fuzzy after that, but somehow red found his way into my ultra-humane, no flight-zone hydraulic working chute.  Oh it felt good to “socialize” that red sucker! Wait, no it didn’t! I couldn’t feel anything but my three half numb, throbbing fingers and the lump on my forehead!

I’m Monte Tucker and that is what’s under my hat that won’t fit at this time! Oh yeah, anyone up for a calf fry? I got fresh picked mountain oysters! PS – do you know how hard it is to type with only your pointing finger and thumb on one hand?