The Breakfast of Champions

Acetaminophen or Ibuprofen?

The cattle-hauler came to pick up the last of Sprite's cattle. He came at first light.

It was not our finest moment. He left with three of the seven beeves. The other four were too spooked.

When the four spooked, three of the four decided I was a nice looking fellow and they went through the panel I was standing next too, pretending to be a fence post.

The panel was an 8' by 5' panel fabbed from angle iron and expanded metal grating. The Captain had fished it out of a scrap pile when an industrial concern upgraded from hard-guard to laser curtains to keep people out of robotic cells.

All of Sprite's equipment is pretty banged up at this point. It was never designed to take the beating that beef cows (and amorous bulls) give fence that is between them and where they want to be.

The fence panel knocked me over like a bowling-pin. Lucky for me the panel was floppy and there were three inches of snow. I went over backwards, ass-over-teakettle.

As a wee-lad I had about four weeks of "Judo" as it was known in the day. I learned how to fall and roll.

And roll I did. Sadly, none of the other guys or Sprite had the foresight to take video, so you are out of luck.

Kill-spots

Kill spots at slaughter houses are still at a premium.

Sprite was petrified that she would lose her seven spots if she didn't get them in today.

We tried for two more hours to get the four calves with wander-lust into the trailer. Two major difficulties were that they were fearful of the trailer (which they had never seen before) and cattle do not like going into dark areas. Primal memories of bears and wolves?

We got close, once. But it was not to be.

Sprite finally gave up. She wanted to go to the neighbor-kid's funeral. Mrs ERJ and I went to the visitation.

The driver suggested Sprite call the slaughter house and ask if she could slide it to next Saturday. They were fine taking three today and four next Saturday. I am 90% sure she is taking them to Nagel's Meat Processing in Homer. I mention their name because they did Sprite a solid by letting her ship over two weekends.

The trucker and I took a quick walk around before he drove away. Sprite has a three-sided building that was used for horses. It is about 14' across and 10' deep. She has the salt for the cattle in that building, so they are used to entering it.

The current plan is to install a gate across the front of that building but to leave the gate open about 6'. Then feed the cattle their grain in the salt shed. Friday night, after putting down the corn, Sprite will simple close and latch the gate, thus containing the four critters in a 140 square feet. 

It should be a snap to move them from the salt shed into the trailer on Saturday morning. Moving cattle from light-to-dark is hard. Moving them from dark-to-dark is much easier.