The bovine dash – for the back 40
Toolbox
Burr Morse - Published: November 9, 2009
Recently my son Tommy's been building a corral out front to catch a couple of his beef cows that are ready for market. By definition, I guess, the beef cow's job is to eat, put on weight, preserve and fertilize open land, and, yes, finally end up on our dinner table. And, I might add, while doing that they sure look pretty out there. I enjoy a good hamburger as much as the next guy and truly believe those critters pass on to the "carnivore's curtain call" without even an inkling of what's happening to them. They do, however, so enjoy the munching part of their existence that they have developed uncanny creativity in not getting caught. In fact, beef cows, although incapable of real "thought," are masters at "thinking outside of the box."
While TV offers generous glimpses of cowboys roping critters and even jumping from horses and tackling them to the ground, none of that stuff really works … it's all Hollywood. In spite of the hype, there's nothing that'll catch a three-quarter-ton critter better than a bucket of grain, a small corral built of strong planks … let's call it a "box," and a lot of luck. The logic is good; you lead 'em to the box with the bucket of grain they can't resist. They go in the box and you close the gate to lock 'em in. It works fine on paper but for the bovine's Murphy-centered ability to "think outside the box." Usually they make a decision just nanoseconds before the gate is closed, opting for continued munching somewhere in the back 40.
I'm reminded of the old days when my father and I had a whole herd of beef cows on this place. Every fall we had to corral a few for market and, no, we never got good at catchin' the buggers. One time we struggled for days to corral a Hereford/Ayrshire cross, the Northern Hemisphere's equivalent to the Tasmanian Devil. Finally we got him into our high-sided Studebaker truck and transported him to the local slaughterhouse. Being Vermont, a place hardly known for its meat industry, our only slaughterhouse was run by a guy who was world-class at skinnin' both cows and customers; I'll always think of him as "the fat butcher."
My father was so leery of him that he dropped both me and the critter off, figuring it wouldn't hurt to make sure only the four-legged of us got skinned. As long as I was there, the fat butcher put me to work pushing wheelbarrow loads of offal to a waiting dumpster and salting piles of cow hides. When our animal's number came up, we attached a rope halter to him and led him onto the floor where beef cows enter the last part of their "job description." Although the butcher had led thousands of them to this point, he didn't take into consideration the qualities of a Hereford/Ayreshire cross and their instant hankerin' for the back 40. I was about to draw the rope through a steel ring in the floor when that critter wanted out. He yanked the rope from me like I was a toddler and then all hell broke loose.
I distinctly remember seeing the double doors that led to the "aging room" burst open and hearing heavy, slapping sounds and cries of human terror. I rushed in just in time to see the fat butcher projected like a rag doll up onto a 10-foot-high freezer. The raging steer did an about-face and headed back through still-swinging sides of beef and out the doors to the meat market. There he ran through a narrow aisle past display coolers full of New York sirloin and fresh hamburger. The entrance door was open and that critter made his final exit to the great outdoors. He ran through a small field, swam across the Winooski River, and settled in a bigger field way out back. Three of us, a shaken-up fat butcher, a very angry state meat inspector, and I stood outside the meat market watching the distant critter, head down, grazing like nothing ever happened!
Thirty years of meat-eating bliss have passed since that episode and, although I swear to God all of the above is true, I've dropped out memory that critter's fate. For all I know, he still roams the hills between East Montpelier and Barre Town satisfied with the quality of forage. More likely, though, we finally caught him and had him processed to a tamer and tastier state. That fat butcher has long since gone on to the big slaughterhouse in the sky and I'm not anxious to ever repeat the experience I had that day. I'll just encourage Tommy to use extra planks, pray for luck, and prepare for the inevitable … a bovine's uncanny ability to think outside of the box.
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