Dad managed our herd of cattle so that the calves were born in the late winter.

Almost the whole herd would have their calves during the same month. This was accomplished using injections the year before to "synchronize" the cows' estrus cycles. Since they all went into heat on the same day, they all got artificially inseminated on the same day at the ABS breeder's ranch up the road. The end result was that they delivered in a short window of time.

Since they delivered late in the winter or the early spring before the grass started growing, we were still feeding them hay.

When I got old enough to drive, Kurt and I did much of the hay-hauling and herd-watching that Dad had previously done. I would have been about 18 and Kurt would have been 15 one winter when we had a particularly memorable night.

Kurt and I loaded the truck with bales of hay one stormy night and headed to the farm. When we got there we discovered that one of the cows was in labor. Usually cows are better at delivering their calves than you are, so you just wait and watch in case she needs a hand.

We dumped all of the hay and watched the cow in labor for an hour or so. She wasn't getting much accomplished in the calving department. So we decided to help her a little.

Sometimes its easy to help out a cow. You just sneak up from the back, slip a set of chains over the calf's hooves (which ought to be sticking out by now) and apply gentle pressure to get the calf moving.

Other times it is more difficult. You don't do such a good job of sneaking up on the cow and she gets up and runs off. When this happens the cow is spooked and alert, and won't settle down and start straining for another half-hour or so. Then you have to pull the sneaky-act again.

This would prove to be one of the tough times. I must have spooked that cow 4 or 5 times, with the resultant waiting periods in between each attempt. It was getting late, almost midnight, when we decided to run her into a corral and pull the calf.

So we chased a pissed-off pregnant cow all over that field, through the herd, in the dark, during a snow storm. It sounds easier than it was.

Finally, when we got her into the corral she still wouldn't settle down. We decided that the right course of action would be to rope her, knock her down, and pull the calf.

Well that's when the fun started. I roped her and wrapped the rope around a post in the corral. Kurt's job was to push her toward the post so I could tighten the rope. There was no way that we were going to PULL her toward that post. Nope. A 1500 pound pissed off Simmental cow is just a little bit stronger than a teenage boy (or two).

Oh hell, she kicked and snorted and threw her head. It took us quite awhile to get the rope short enough to restrict her movement.

We finally got the chains on the calf's hooves and pulled, but that was a big (BIG!), stuck calf. We had to use the calf-puller.

Now, at this point you're probably thinking that a calf-puller is some sort of medical instrument-looking item that you can carry around in your glove compartment. Its not.

A calf puller is a about six feet long and weighs about forty pounds. Picture an upper-case letter "Y" six feet long made of steel. Now picture a hand-operated winch bolted to it with a big hook on it. That's a calf puller.

The way you use it goes something like this: first, you put a chain (which looks like a choke chain for a big dog) on the calf's hooves, then you put the top of the "y" against the cow's butt, then you attach the cable from the winch to the chains. When you crank on the winch it pulls on the calf. Simple, huh?

Well, we did all that, and the calf was born. It was alive, which was kind of a shock to me given the length and trauma of it’s mom's labor. But the calf was alive, mom was alive, Kurt and I were still alive and it was 3 o'clock in the morning, so the cow decided to reject her calf just to spite us. Cows are vindictive like that.

Kurt and I tried to figure out how to get milk out of mom and into junior when all mom wanted to do was kick.

Out came the rope again.

We roped her and after what seemed like forever the calf was full of warm milk on a decidedly cold night. At least the storm had let up, leaving about a foot of show in its wake.

We let mom off of the rope, and she finally accepted the calf. We stayed around a little while just to make sure that junior was gonna survive.

Now it was about 6 o'clock in the morning. That was the first time that I ever stayed up all night. I'm pretty sure it was Kurt's first all-nighter too, and we were bushed.

Don't get me wrong. I was kind of proud to have helped out (although my meddling may have been the problem in the first place). I thought it was kind of cool to have stayed up all night. I had a good time with Kurt, who was a trooper the whole time.

But we were tired. Bushed. All in.

What do you think a couple of hicks do when they are that tired on a school day? Well, they go to the store and get a Pepsi, that's what.

Nutritious breakfast of calf-pullin' knuckleheads the world over.

We had to drive through town to get to the only store open at that time of day. We weren't talking much just then. I was just trying to stay awake long enough to get to the store. It was going to take something pretty drastic to catch our attention right then.

And right then something pretty drastic happened.

Some idiot was setting up a yard sale in a foot of snow on a Friday morning next to the road we were driving down. What kind of fool sets a yard sale up after a snowstorm at 6 o'clock on a
weekday?

Now I wonder about this. At the time all of these questions eluded me.

Kurt and I tiredly turned our heads looking at the junk in the yard as we drove by. Then, in unison, about 14 seconds later we both turned toward each other and said "Hey! That was an AR-15!"

I had been in love with the AR-15 in one of the local gun shops for years. That rifle stayed in there for so long that I thought it might still be there on the day I could afford it.

Then it disappeared. Heavy sigh.

I still couldn't afford it though, so there was no reason to turn around and go back to the idiot's yard sale.

We just kept heading for the store. Talking about how cool it would be to have an AR-15. We talked about it and talked about it, and when we turned toward home we made sure that the idiot's yard sale was along our route.

We stopped and talked to the idiot, who turned out not to be such an idiot after all. He talked Kurt and I (mostly Kurt) out of 400 dollars. Who's the idiot?

This is one of those times that Kurt smelled a rat. Big sucker. Huge.

When we got back to the house we scrounged 400 bucks between us and went back for the rifle. By the time we got back home, everyone was sitting down to breakfast. Kurt and I walked in with this really dangerous looking rifle, which immediately resulted in quizzing about where we got it etc.

Just think what Mom and Dad had going through their heads...The boys are gone all night, and come in at seven o'clock on a school day carrying a military-looking weapon that we've never seen before. What, as good parents, should we think about all of this?

Kurt and I really didn't care. We went upstairs and collapsed in bed and slept for most of the day.