Tastes like Peppermint! (Cumberland Saga)

Sarah and Blain were picked up at first light at the end of the driveway.

Sarah had worked out a complex deal where she and Blain would work at a dairy at the far end of the county in return for being allowed to purchase some old, cull cows and some old bales of mixed grass-alfalfa.

Recent changes in Federal Law mandated that the farmer reduce the number of cows he milked due to climate change. Cows that he would have kept a little bit longer were to be culled.

The ones that Sarah was going to buy were old, bred cows that did not "take" for the first few cycles and so would have an excessively long period between when they “dried off” and when they calved again. The farmer could not afford to hang onto them as “pets” for that extended period.

The hay was late, first-cutting, low-quality hay that the farmer never gotten around to feeding his animals. It was filled with viable seeds. Not only would it feed the cows until the new pasture started producing, it was going to supply the seeds FOR that pasture.

Sarah and Blain were wearing their most decrepit and disreputable clothing.

They were going to be trimming cow hooves.

Sarah moved the cows and she had a knack for it. For her, the work was not that bad.

The work was brutal for Blain. The farmer showed him how to do a couple of them and then handed the angle-grinder with the cutter-head on it to Blain. “Leave them a little bit longer rather than a little shorter. You can’t screw it up. They won’t be any worse after you trim them than they are now.”

Blain wasn’t too sure.

The cattle were put into a stanchion to hold them but it still involved bending over.

The farmer told him to look for the inside of the hoof to change color as he cut closer to the “quick” and to stop before he hit blood. That freaked Blain out. He went very slowly on the first three cows. That was twelve hooves.

Sarah told him he was going to have to step it up. He had over 200 cows to trim the hooves on and he could not afford to spend over 20 minutes on each one.

It was clear from the beginning that this gig was going to last several days.

The farmer invited them to use the showers and the laundry at the end of the day and loaned them protective Tyvek suits to wear while the clothes were drying.

Before they left, Sarah asked if she could bring a load of laundry from home and run it while they were trimming hooves. Having hired many hoof-trimmers in the past who never showed up the second day, the farmer said “I think that is a splendid idea.”

Blain’s speed increased as he became more comfortable with the tool. It also beat him up less as he figured out the optimal pressures and angles to let the power of the tool eat through the tough, shit-soaked hooves.  

Near the end of the second day, the farmer brought an animal for Blain to trim while Sarah was rotating the laundry.

“Be careful” the farmer informed Blain. “This here is my bull.”

The animal was enormous.

“Are all bulls this big?” Blain asked.

“Nope. This one is old. In fact, I was afraid I was going to have to replace him because he was slowin’ down at breedin’ the cows. He just wasn't gettin' after them” the farmer told him.

“That a fact?” Blain responded absentmindedly.

“Yup. He is my clean-up guy. If the artificial-insemination doesn’t take, his job is to get-it-done.”

Blain wiped the sweat off of his forehead with the back of his wrist. “So what did you do?”

“I called the vet. He came out and gave Brutus a check-up and left me with a big bottle of tiny white pills. Told me to give him one every day. So I did and he perked right up. In fact, he about wears those cows out makin’ sure they are with-calf” the farmer said.

“What do you suppose was in them?” Blain asked.

“Don’t rightly know” the farmer replied. “But they tasted like peppermint.”

Blain shot the farmer the look to see if he was kidding.

The farmer gave him a wink and a smile.

On the last day of the gig, the farmer made arrangements with Sarah regarding the details of the delivery of the hay and the cull-cows. Sarah wanted the hay delivered first since there was no forage growing in the new pastures yet. Then she wanted the three cull-cows delivered at the same time. Three cows don’t spook the way a single cow will and are easier to handle.

As they were leaving, the farmer said, “Hey sport! Catch.” as he threw something to Blain.

It was a package of breath-mints.

Blain gave the package to Roger when he got home. He figured Roger could use them more than he could.