Country Humor

Some flying fun in our cycle of snow

Our humor around here is brash.

I contribute this to our attempt at a simple existence.  You know, growing and eating things around ya'.

Some may think we take eat local movement to an uber level, but we do not.  We are simply just striving to be a little more self sufficient.

In reality the whole self sufficient thing just follows cycles.  In our simple world it means:

• Mushrooms and wild turkey in the spring 
• Fresh strawberries in spring and frozen strawberries in February
• Putting up hay in the sweltering July sun and feeding it in a polar vortex
• Scrounging for empty canning jars in October and struggling to find storage space for empty canning jars in March

What happened at the vet is Little Guy's effort at compartmentalizing the cycles to which he is exposed.

Several bull calves went to vet the other day.  In our cow-calf management we choose not use hormone implants.  We castrate bull calves making them steers.  We do not do this at their birth, but rather wait until they are older.  This gives them testosterone to help them grow - naturally not artificially.

Here is the process:

Cut and pull by the vet.

A brief bawl of ouch by the calf.

A quick toss of the removed rocky mountain oysters.

When I snapped this photo Little Guy was standing beside me.  He was taking in the scene and trying to place the event somewhere in his brain to make sense of it.  Picture him squirming from one foot to the other with his hands in his pockets.  

In this moment he asked the vet a question:

"Do those grow back?"

 There was quite a long conversation between Little Guy and the vet.

 Little guy listened intensely. He learned a new piece of a cycle.

All of us grown ups stifled our giggles caused our brash country humor.

I will cherish this memory.  Perhaps I will share it someday. Like at his wedding during the toast?