Yesterday a most truly amazing thing happened. I
still can not quite believe it. Our bull practically
loaded himself into our stock trailer.

We, and especially Kent, had been fretting for several
weeks over how we could go about loading the Big Boy.
We needed to get rid of him and we already had a new
bull waiting in the wings. Our problem was we are just
Mom and Pop homesteaders. We are not really set up to
handle a lot of the intricacies of raising cattle. So,
we try to keep our 8 or 10 bovine pretty tame. That
doesn't eliminate all the adventures at loading time,
but it does help.

The problem was that Big Boy was scared of us. He
wasn't necessarily belligerent, but rather more on
the petrified side of things. That could be as
dangerous as belligerent if he were cornered.

But yesterday, ah now, that was just amazing. Kent put
some food in the barn and he (the bull) wandered in to
eat it, along with two other cows. Kent snuck up and
blocked the door. Then he sent Hattie to get me. I
ran outside and stood in front of the barrier to keep
the bull from jumping over it while Kent ran and got
the truck and stock trailer. It is so comforting when
your husband shouts to you as he runs to get the truck,
"If he starts to jump, get out of the way!"

The trailer was duly backed up to the barn door and the
only way the cows could go was into the trailer. Kent
went to get feed to try and coax them that direction.
The other two cows just jumped into the trailer as
though they were headed to a party. I was blocking
the small gap to keep the bull from trying to push the
trailer away from the barn and escape. He came to the
gap and stood there for 3 or 4 minutes. I didn't look
at him, because I didn't want him to think I was thinking
about him. Then, before Kent could return with the
feed he just stepped right into the trailer. I reached
back and slid the gate in place and dropped in the pin
and BINGO. We had ourselves a bull.

Then we had to drive to the other field and the cows
were lined up perfectly so that when we opened the
back gate the two we didn't want to sell stepped right
off again. Then Big Boy scrunched himself up towards
the front so we could close the middle door and trap
him into the front where he had to be in order to
balance the weight.

I am sorry to trouble you with such a long story.
It is just that we are still in a fog of amazement.

And, of course Hattie went to the sale barn because
she loves to bid on cows. And now we own a new black
heifer and a new black with white face heifer.