Just for laughs

I write a humor column in the local paper and sometimes the subject matter is farm related - people are getting quite a kick out of this one, so I thought I'd post it on my blog too. I have to warn you though, getting the jokes definitely dates you. Those young whipper-snappers don't know who Matt Dillon and Roy Rogers are!

COWBOY COMPLEX
By Jocelyn Hainsworth

Every once in a while my farmer gets to thinking he’s a cowboy too. I’m not too sure which one he thinks he is ... John Wayne? Matt Dillon? Roy Rogers? Or maybe a combination of all three - let’s see, he can probably sing as well as John and toss whiskey back as good as old Roy ever could. I can’t remember, what did Matt do except try to keep Doc Adams and Festus from killing each other? The only thing he really likes to do with horses is pet them.

I guess you’d have to say that he is his own brand of cowboy. You’d never see Clint Eastwood wearing a pair of beat up bib coveralls out to ride the range. And his trademark polka dot welding cap hardly inspires western theme music, either. Whoever he thinks he is, it’s not your stereo-typical ride-off-into-the-sunset kind of macho gunslinger.

But still, he is a boy. And, he has these cows.

He feeds them. He bales for them. He builds fence for them. He makes chop for them. He scratches their backs and tells them all how sleek and pretty they are looking. Truth to tell, he would do well to spend at least a quarter that much time and attention on me - but of course, he doesn’t plan on selling me for money.

He does pride himself on having healthy animals - and in a natural way. They just get good feed and water and we stay away from any drugs or hormones. We’re not going to raise anything that we wouldn’t want to eat ourselves. But there are times when a cowboy has to step in and do some doctoring - like when a yearling heifer gets an injury to her eye.

That was the scenario on Monday night when the farmer/cowboy came up to the house and started rooting through his fishing tackle box that doubles as a vet supplies case. He had decided that #766 needed medical attention. He got busy and prepared his instruments of torture: a large syringe to squirt saline solution in her eye, a tube of suave to rub in her eye, and a needle full of antibiotics for good measure. We filled a container with warm salt water and off we went to the barn - where he collected the equipment it was going to take to get her to stand while he did his doctoring ... a rope, and another rope, and a halter. I suggested the squeeze chute, but that’s always a last resort when he’s feeling like a cowboy.

Even though she was half blind, she knew something was up when he entered the pen draped in rope. Not that she had much to worry about, even surrounded by 50 other animals, all lazily munching on their evening chop, it took him three or four tosses to get his lasso over her head - and then she neatly stepped through the loop so that by the time the man with the split second reflexes yanked the rope tight she was sporting a belt around her midsection. It took even longer to get the belt off than it did to put it on.

The rodeo went on. He caught her again and the clasp on the rope let go. He snared her again but couldn’t convince her to let him get her close to a pole to tie her up again. As he stood there, puffing, and anchoring his end of the rope, he decided that the squeeze chute might be the way to go after all.

She was some riled by this time, so steering her into a metal cage was an adventure all its own with me opening the back gate and trying to set the head gate so it would catch - of course with him calmly explaining how the mechanism worked. Remember how nice Roy Rogers was to Dale Evans? Well, it wasn’t like that, but over the next ten minutes we wrangled #766 into the bovine equivalent of the hospital’s minor room.

The actual treatment procedure was kind of subdued. I had her in a halter head lock but she didn’t even twitch when he washed the eye. She wasn’t too happy about the suave massage, but it was the shot of penicillin that really fired the fight back up in her again; that stuff must really hurt.

We set her free and gathered up all the doctoring gear. It was a warm night and John/Matt/Roy was smelling a lot like Trigger after one of them day long gallops they used to do on TV. We headed for the house with him opening and closing gates as need be, and me following behind carrying all the stuff. I’m not sure who he is, but you can call me Tonto.