So much of my life has been backwards, upside-down,
inside-out and out of order this year that it seems almost natural that I
should wait until after the fourth Thursday of November to write about
thankfulness.
I was under the weather on Thanksgiving and on Black Friday.
I felt a lot better on Saturday, and even though as a writer I’m supposed to be
able to describe things clearly in written words, I can’t begin to tell you how
good feeling better felt.
I was able to spend some feet-in-the-manure time with my
cows.
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| A pen of well conditioned cows calmly await sorting on a ranch south of Kimball. Click for a larger image. |
Three weaned spring calves had escaped the confines of their
winter pasture gone home to mama. I needed to sort them off and get them back
with their peers. I also had a fall calf that had developed a spectacular case
of bacterial scours. After the battering near-train wreck we took from
bacterial scours this spring, there was no hesitation in my mind. This heifer
needed treatment.
Saturday was – for November – warm. It was breezy, too. No,
strike that. It was windy. Blowing out of the west at 35 mph, gusting to 50
mph, the wind pummeled me, sucked the air out of my lungs, and lashed out with
great clouds of dirt.
But I felt good, and when the temperature is 66 degrees, a
little bit of wind isn’t much of a bother.
I brought the cows in on foot. It wasn’t much of a trick;
their winter pasture is adjacent to the barn and corrals. I thoroughly enjoyed
moving and working the cows using low-stress handling techniques.
Learning those low-stress techniques is one of the best
things that ever happened to me. I’m still surprised that my mind was open
enough to see the merit of the idea and to give it a try. More than a few
skeptics told me I was wasting my time. I took a lot of ribbing from neighbors
who’d seen me laying supine in the middle of the pasture, hat shading my eyes,
surrounded by curious cattle who, singly or in pairs, would approach and gave
me a good sniff. Those cattle became familiar with my presence and my smell,
and I came to recognize them individuals. Individual cattle who are not people.
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| A pair of calm, well conditiond four year-old cows in a pen south of Kimball. Click for a larger image. |
I’ve come to realize that low-stress cattle handling is
grown-up cattle handling.
I’ve called the application of these techniques pressure
dancing, and after so many years of shouting and waving and zipping back and
forth all over the place, I’m still amazed at how well it works.
Saturday’s small chore, a job that would have previously
taken the three-hour efforts of five hands,
four dogs, two pickups, three four-wheelers, a rented goat and a month’s
worth of cussing took me 45 minutes, start to finish.
Watching those cattle calmly stroll through gates and into
corrals was a soothing, satisfying experience. Sorting off four calves was
simplicity itself. Treating the sick calf was a non-event, even though she
liberally splattered me with evil-smelling feces.
Please don’t take my message the wrong way. There’s nothing
wrong with traditional methods of working cattle. The job gets done, the hands
enjoy their work, and the cattle don’t suffer at all. Different doesn’t have to
be better or worse. Most often, different is just different.
It was a good day. A day spent in the real world, and away
from the insanity of our drunkenly-stumbling artificial society.
I received a number of e-mails last Thursday which said
“Happy Thanksgiving!” While I appreciate the time and effort expended in these
missives, none of them cited reasons to be thankful or to (perish the thought!)
give thanks. If there had been a “like” button programmed to send out the
e-mails, most would have clicked it and moved on to something important. I feel
a bit bad about that.
I’d wager that if asked, the vast majority of Americans
could only regurgitate pre-programmed platitudes of thankfulness. What do they
have to be thankful for? Food? There’s always food at the grocery store.
Clothing? There’s always clothing at the department store. Health? There’s
always medicine at the medicine store.Warmth? There’s always warmth from the
heating system. Light? There’s always light with the flip of a switch.
Transportation? Right outside on the driveway. The ability to pay for these
things? You either have a job or the government gives you money. Security,
roads, school, clean water, climate? Somebody else does that. Few people know
who.
In 1863, in the depths of the Civil War, the President of
the United States wrote a Proclamation of Thanksgiving to the nation. If you’d
like to read the entire proclamation, click here or use a search engine to look it up.
In the midst of a war so terrible that few alive today can
even begin to imagine the suffering, grief, carnage and desolation that ravaged
our country, the President noted that:
“The year that is drawing
toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and
healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are
prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which
are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften
even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence
of Almighty God…
“It has seemed to me fit and
proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged,
as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore
invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those
who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe…a day of thanksgiving and
praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”
I am thankful that at so desperate a time, America had a
leader of utmost honor; a man who could pen such thoughtful and healing words.
The world inhabited by most Americans, and by most citizens
of the so-called developed world, is not the entirety of experience.
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