Cowboy Chronicles starring Mr. Black Angus

Bruce took Jesse and Peter over to the ranch/farm (only five minutes away) where our cows are, to help our friend Lane brand, tag and vaccinate cows. Bruce and Jesse were up on Lane's horses rounding up the cows and getting the right ones into the pens. I missed this part, but I sure would like to have seen it!When I got there they had a jersey cow in the chute. Jesse branded the cow. I couldn't believe it. That girl will do anything! They had already been out there doing these "ranching" things for four hours. And Peter right along with her and Bruce. You can see he squeezed his splint into the coat. He goes in to get his cast on Monday. Here is our friend Lane in the background. He is actually my fourth cousin, our lines going back to the Stevensons. He is Bruce's partner in these cowboy chronicles.
After the brown Jersey cow was done, the next project was to get the this bad boy, Lane's Black Angus bull, into the chute. Hijole. There was a hispanic fellow there named Jose, and after talking to him a minute, all my exclamations, related to the bull, were coming out in Spanish. I found that quite interesting! Maybe a flashback from my cowboy/ranching cousins growing up.

Anyway, this bull was something else. He was huge! I can see him singing that part from Madagascar, "I like 'em big, I like 'em chunky..." Only he wasn't mellow like Moto Moto. He was out to get somebody!

About ten seconds after this video stops, Mr. Black Angus decides to JUMP the gate that I have an arrow pointing to in the next picture, off to the right of Bruce.
This is the pen where the Jersey cows were, so he wanted to be with the ladies and the calves. Oh boy, the cowboys were not expecting that! It was quite a sight to see a 2000 lb animal get himself off the ground and over that gate. Luckily he didn't decide to jump when he was facing Bruce in the video! Bruce would have been jumpin' over a gate himself! Luckily, he does it every day when he goes out to feed the cows, so I know he can still get it done.

With some Yawin' and He-hawin', Lane getting on the tin roof above him, the kids pounding on the shed behind him, and Bruce getting IN the pen, and more yelling, Mr. Black Angus finally went down the chute and ended up here.Good thing Lane was quick on the sanction, or he would have gotten right through and caused all sorts of trouble.It was amazing to see a bull this close. He was all full of testosterone, swinging his head around and spit flying everywhere. It was gross or awesome, depending on how you think of testosterone.

Lane said, "Here Bruce, why don't you tag his ear?" Bruce laughed about that later. Lane did the branding, so I think Bruce got the easier part.

They got it all done without any further incident. That was something else, working with that bull. It was intense to be in a situation where something could go very wrong in short order.

Before doing this blog, I would never have gotten pictures like this, but I knew I wanted to get this recorded, so I got down there and got some pictures, just to be able to blog it. Ha ha!

Until the next Cowboy Chronicles...