Mr. Boo helps fix the fence
Over the past years, Mr. Boo, my big angus/ hereford herd sire, has been the subject of several columns. He was raised as a bottle-baby, his mother having died giving birth to him. He was raised in a cardboard box in front of a big wood kitchen stove in the hills southwest of Red Bluff, near the community of Flournoy. They had nicknamed their little bull calf “Eeery-boo” for he was born in late October, 2013, so they chose a sort of Halloween name. We decided Mr. Boo would be a better choice, and it has stuck.
Mr. Boo has a unique personality. In fact, he has a rather unusual personality. He likes people, and will sometimes reward a human with a bovine kiss, or lick on the cheek or hand. Even when he’s out in the pasture, he loves to have me ride up to him on my quad, stop and give him a few loving pats. When he’s walking past the house, if I call to him, he’ll almost always stop and turn his head toward me. Sometimes he’ll walk over to the patio gate and get a scratch.
His entire purpose in life is to keep my cows busy having calves. With a small herd of cows, his work-load is anything but burdensome. In fact, the neighboring fields often have heifers who attract a bored Mr. Boo. Of course, between my field and the neighbor’s field, a barbed wire fence is constructed. The intent is for Mr. Boo to stay home with his small herd of cows, and not go visiting the neighbors. At least, that’s the plan, though it may not result in the practice.
On many occasions I’ve discovered a familiar bull out in the neighbor’s field. I know he didn’t fly over the fence, so the sighting of my bull on the wrong side, means I have to go looking for his access point. This is more often than not, a gaping hole in the fence.
Fortunately, Bob comes by the ranch on a fairly regular basis. He often gets to put in an hour or more rebuilding the fence, often replacing or adding posts, and sometimes even restringing wire. Most of the posts in that line of fence are steel, driven in the ground with a heavy driver. Even steel posts are no match for a determined Mr. Boo. It’s not at all unusual to find a post that was perfectly good yesterday, bent like a pretzel today. This is the result of my big stubborn bull pushing and shoving until the post bends. When the fence attached to the post is close enough to the ground to easily step over, he calmly walks into the neighbor’s field to visit his other herd.
Last week, I’d spotted Mr. Boo enjoying the grazing on the neighbor’s hillside. Even though his enticing heifers were nowhere to be seen, the bull was nipping the short green grass. Knowing how access across the fence is accomplished, I asked Bob to investigate and repair if necessary.
We’d just returned with a load of wood for my fireplace, so while Bob busied himself with repairing the fence, I started the engine on my hydraulic splitter so I could make small pieces out of some of the larger ones. After a half-hour of splitting chunks, I looked toward the back field to see where Bob was working. It was easy to see where the hole in the fence had been, for the quad was parked in plain sight. But then I got the giggles.
Mr. Boo had been lying near the gate leading out to the back field when I started the splitter. Chewing his cud peacefully, he looked as if he were planning on to spend the rest of the morning there.
Apparently curious what was happening to the recently-created hole in the fence, he’d walked out near Bob. Standing within 15 feet of the quad, he was quietly watching Bob work, as he was busy rebuilding the gaping hole. It looked like the old bull was supervising Bob’s repair efforts. I hopped on the other quad and hurried out to get a picture of Mr. Boo.
As soon as I got in position to snap the picture, the curious bull walked toward me to give me an inquisitive sniff and a lick. I did get a picture of Mr. Boo and Bob and the now-repaired fence. The angle of this picture makes the bull look a good deal smaller than he really is.
The grass on the neighbor’s hillsides, and in my back field, has only had 1.85 inches of moisture all winter. We got exactly one inch (1.00 inches) on November 7 and 8, and then another 0.28 inches on the 12th and 13th. That was enough to start the grass growing. But then a problem arose. No more rain fell on the hills until three days after Christmas, 45 days of dryness, when we got 0.57 inches.
Even though the grass was beginning to look a bit weak and puny after all of the dryness, it has brightened a great deal. And with warm days like we had last Saturday, when it was 63 degrees, it will bring the grass along quickly.
Last year January had 0.52 inches, February not even as good at 0.35 inches. But March had 3.55 inches and April 3.15, plus May finished up with 0.71 inches. Looking back at previous years, our best bet for significant rain should come in March and April.
Of course, the grass in my field is growing just as fast as the grass on the neighbor’s hillside. However, my bull has a tendency to want to go visiting. One has to assume that to Mr. Boo, the neighbor’s grass has a more vibrant shade of green, when viewed through the fence. So, Bob will probably be fixing fence again in the near future.