My first solo tag

It was the winter/spring of 2010. Clayton worked late and didn’t get home until 9-10pm, so it was up to me to take care of feeding the cows. I’ve mentioned before that it’s a lot of work to feed on your own. But I’ll say it again. It’s a lot of work to feed on your own! Load the hay in the truck, watch out for skunks in the haystack, talk to the dogs while you’re driving to the field because there’s nobody else to talk to, open and close the gates, get out and throw a few bales off, get back in and drive a few yards, get out and throw a few bales off . . . you get the idea. It’s quite the task. But, like I said earlier, when the task falls to you, you do it. Because that’s responsibility. And I felt pretty cool back then. Nowadays, I’ve sadly lost some of my bravado, but that’s a story for another day. Maybe someday I’ll get my bravado back.

Back to the story. I was feeding the cows. Driving around the field, I noticed off in the distance that a newborn calf was curled up in the grass, patiently waiting for mama to return. “Here’s my big chance,” I thought. “I can tag this calf all by myself and then everyone will think I am so tough.” I finish feeding, park the truck a ways off, and of course, leave the dogs inside the cab. Don’t want no dogs chasing off the baby. I prepare a tag, load it in the tagging gun, and sneak up on the little fella. Now, I knew that the calf most likely wouldn’t just calmly lay there while I, a predator, came up and shoved this plastic tag through its ear. I knew I had to be sneaky, and I knew that I would have to hold the calf down. “Big deal,” I thought, “I’ve seen Clayton and the guys do it. I can totally handle this.” I pounced on the calf, and attempted to hold him down with one hand while holding the tagging gun with the other. I didn’t anticipate, however, that calves are big and strong. It’s not like handling a helpless tiny newborn kitten. Calves are born 50 pounds or so of precociousness, meaning they can stand up, walk, run, and suckle within an hour after being born. I don’t know exactly how old this new calf was, but he was strong enough to get away from me. I was about to lose my grip. The calf was thrashing around, trying to get away from his attacker, crying and bellering for his mama the whole time. I decided that drastic measures were necessary. I dropped the tagging gun on the ground, grabbed the calf with both hands, and then . . . I sat on him.

Well, he wouldn’t hold still! He was about to get away! I couldn’t confess to Clayton that I had almost tagged a calf and then let him get away! The shame! So, I sat on him. Straddled his little body between my knees, and then I put all of my 135 pounds on his measly 50 pounds and held that calf down. And I tagged him! All by myself! Let me tell you, during this whole time, my heart is seriously thumping. This is a huge adrenaline rush. The excitement of sneaking up on the calf before he runs away, trying to hold him down and then realizing that I couldn’t, sitting on the little bugger and then succeeding in tagging him, looking up and realizing that the mama cow is on her way to rescue her baby . . . Wait, what? The mama cow is on her way to rescue her baby? I am attacking her poor defenseless baby, and she is on her way to save him! I better get the heck out of here!

The mama, alerted that something was wrong by her baby’s cries for help, is seriously galloping towards me as fast as she can. Luckily for me, we were a pretty good distance away from where the herd was eating the hay that I so kindly delivered to them, so I had had plenty of time to wrestle with the calf and get the tag on before realizing that mama cow was on her way. She was still a good 20 or 30 yards away, but believe me, when you’re on the ground and you look up and see a cow running at you at full speed, your brain says, “Oh, crap.” I quickly got off the calf, ran to the truck and jumped inside. Safe and sound, just in the nick of time.