I adopted my oldest son when he was 6 years old. He had a friend named Rustin who was the same age and in his class that he hung around with and often went to their house to play.
Rustin was about 7-years old and his dad said to me, “If you can find my son a white Brahma heifer he wants one.” So one Friday I called his dad and said, “I think I found Rustin a calf.” So Randy brought his son to the sale and I had that Brahma heifer in a pen with about 20 others. Rustin walked up toward that calf and I thought, well, she is not going to be gentle enough for him to walk up to. But darned if she wasn’t. It must have been a calf raised on the bottle because she let him scratch her. He named her Molly and all the family knew her well.
She started out in the backyard and ended up keeping all the other crazy cows and calves in line. She knew her purpose and was good at it. Molly lived to be 21 years old, and she was buried under her favorite shade tree. I was told that several of the family shed a tear the day Molly died.
I asked my nephew if he was going to bring in those cows that were open a few months ago and preg them again and sell the open ones. He said, “Yes, I plan on it.” I said, “If you want my two youngest boys to help you, they can.” But I said, “You better feed them in the corral a day or two before you can get them in on Sunday.” He said, “I have been feeding them.” I said, “Well, the boys can still help you.” He said, “They like to eat so it shouldn’t be that hard.”
I said, “You mean Mark and Zack like to eat? I agree.” He laughed and said, “No, I meant my cows.”
When I was a boy, my mom would send me down the street to the corner store with a dollar and I’d come back with five potatoes, two loaves of bread, two bottles of milk, a packet of tea and six eggs. You can’t do that now because there are way too many security cameras.
If I had a dollar for every gal that I thought was unattractive they would soon think that I was attractive.
Editor’s note: The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not represent the view of High Plains Journal. Jerry Nine, Woodward, Oklahoma, is a lifetime cattleman who grew up on his family’s ranch near Slapout, Oklahoma.
