Yesterday I went to my parents' farm to help vaccinate their cows. The Black Angus went pretty smoothly, as the new corral and chute system is a lot easier to work with than the old days when we just had a rope and a tree. It was a bit muddy, and at one point I found a hole in the poo which pretty much swallowed my leg. I did not take any spare clothes with me, so I drove home in underwear and a pair of my dad's overalls. On wet days the poo and mud actually soaks into your gloves and clothes and your skin sort of absorbs the cow-stink in a sort of organic lotion effect. After two showers I could still smell the cow on my skin a little bit. But the Angus went pretty well.

The Longhorns, on the other hand, were a learning experience for us. My parents own them largely as a form of pasture ornamentation, but they still need to be vaccinated to keep them from becoming ill. Unfortunately the size of their horns makes it impossible for them to negotiate the cattle chute. So we had to devise a way of confining them with a gate and securing the horns by looping ropes around them and pulling them up tight against the fence long enough for them to get their shots. It was rather exciting and one of the cows was too crafty to even let us catch her, although we had a good time running all over the pasture while she and her friend wrecked stuff and jumped fences. While we were chasing her one of the other longhorns decided that she didn't want to be in the corral any more and broke through the wall. I'm sure that in time a better way will be found, but in any case no one was injured and compared with the rodeos of the past this was a pretty decent outing. Those horns sure are long and sharp-looking though.

For dinner we had hamburgers as a little joke.