KAY'S KATTLE

The other day I suddenly remembered opening my first checking account. Doesn't sound too startling but I was only 14 years old. I cashed in my U.S. Savings Bonds which I had won in a kite flying contest and bought a registered Hereford heifer. The plan was to start a small herd of registered Herefords, the kind of cow you don't make burgers out of. (I know that's a "dangling preposition", but who cares nowadays?) The rancher I bought her from was so impressed that he gave me a registered cow with calf at the side so then I had three head. That was the reason I needed a bank account. 

For those of you who don't know, Herefords are beautiful cattle with a wavy red pelt and a white head with the white running part way down the upper neck and on their chest. They are very docile creatures.

We lived out in the country where I had enough room to keep my cattle and tend to them every day. I was a freshman in high school and I believe to this day that the responsibility of the cattle kept me out of trouble. I was not a member of Future Farmers or any other organized agricultural group. No one else helped me with them. My father told me that I was on my own with them and that was fine with me. The only time I needed help was lifting the bales of hay and hauling feed sacks. I didn't need help feeding them because there was plenty of grass except during the dry summer months. And there were some really DRY months starting in about 1950. We had a terrible drought, so bad even the cactus died! My little herd had increased and I leased some acreage from a local rancher. I had to feed them during this drought and that ran up my feed bill, but fortunately, when I was able to sell a couple of them to pay the bill and the lease. I sold my favorite bull to a rancher from Alice, Texas, who used him as a herd sire. That says a lot for the quality of my cattle. 

I feel as if I have told you the following but just in case, I'll tell it again here. I was getting my favorite bull ready for the stock show so I decided to give him a bath. I tied him up by the water hydrant and began to spray him liberally, following that with a scrub with a big bar of soap. He seemed to enjoy it and when I happened to look down at the water running off his big body, I saw that it was RED! I panicked, thinking I had injured him somehow, but then I realized that it was the lanolin in his red hair. No one had told me about that so then I began to wonder if his luxurious coat would fade. But no, he was just more handsome when I finished drying him an combing his beautiful pelt.

There are a few more little episodes regarding the raising of cattle, but they're not important and I'm tired of writing. Hope I can insert some photos here.




Hooray! I did it!


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