Looks like one, but looks can be deceiving.
I think I've mentioned before that raising cattle might seem to be an unusual sideline for a professional photographer and a nurse practitioner, but we did it, for 24 years until the handsome fellow above ended our career as cattle farmers.
After overgrazing our land with too many cattle for a few years, we realized that our 28 acres could only support six cows year-round. Each spring we would buy a young bull and put him in with our cows for two months, then sell him. That way, breeding our cows was essentially free.
This was our last bull. He came from a good breeder and was one of the best-looking bulls we ever owned. We put him with our cows for the usual two months, sold him to a farmer on Sand Mountain, and settled back for nature to take its course.
Spring calving season came eventually, and with it -- no calves! Our handsome bull had been shooting blanks!
Louise and I had been debating for some time and asking the Lord for an indication of when we should get out of the cattle business. By this time I was 75, and she was worried that I would get hurt working with the cattle.
Since we were undecided about what to do, we did not buy another bull at that time, as we normally would have. We had a prize heifer that was just coming into breeding age, and one day she decided to go looking for male companionship on a neighboring farm. It was a week before we found her. Another neighbor volunteered to tranquilize her, tie her up, load her on his truck, and bring her home.
He got her tranquilized and tied a rope around her neck, but before he could get her loaded, something stampeded the herd she was hanging out with. She woke up,ran to the end of her rope, and broke her neck.
That was a sad loss. We took it as a sign that it was time to get out. That same farmer bought the rest of our herd, and after 24 years, we were finished. We hung on to our farm for nine more years, but it was never the same without the cattle.
If you like my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/ Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.
The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023.
Photograph and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
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