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Just a scoop full(Sept. 30)--I bought some cows that I had on the end of "graze-out" wheat in May, and left them on weeds until just the other day when it was time to plant wheat. And naturally, in buying these cows, you get someone else's problems. You know the routine--you take the pickup out to the wheat field, you honk your horn and, perhaps, holler out the window "Come on boss." Everyone has a different lingo. You will just cake these cows and calves in the corral before they realize you are trying to trap them. You get most of them in, and then you go back on the outside and give them some cake, hoping to trick them into the corral the next day--as if they didn't see the other cows get trapped. You know it will work because you have done this many a time. Well, the next day you ease out there like "I just came to give you a little cake, that's all." You get a few more cows in by hollering "Come on boss." But needless to say, there are two cows that don't understand what that means. They both put their head up very high in the air and that is the last time you use the words "Come on boss." Then you try the ole "I'll just get the pickup on the other side of them and drive them into the corral." You start out very slow until "that ole rip" starts off in a dead run. Then you goose that pickup, not letting that "blankety-blank" get by your pickup. You run her about a quarter of a mile heading that "stupid, no good for nothing rip" to the corral. That is normally when you hit a ditch that you didn't know was there, throwing everything from the dash to the floor. From that point on, there are no words spoken in a normal tone of voice. It just makes you feel better if you holler those words out the window at that "dumb butt cow." It's a dead run to the side of the corral and she is not getting by. There's no way she can get by because you have just slid within six inches of the fence leading up to the corral. Then all of a sudden, she shows you how a "hammer-headed dumb butt rip" can lean a fence in and go on by. Later, one of my boys asked me how come there was manure on the headlights and I simply couldn't remember. If anyone else was driving your pickup like that, you would be mad as the dickens. But you have only one thought in mind, and that is getting that "no good counterfeit stupid inbred cuss" in the corral. Then you whirl that pickup around in a circle like you were in the Indianapolis 500 and all of a sudden she beats you to the next fence and jumps in with the neighbor's cows. You swear you will never buy another set of cows as long as you live. And you don't--until next year, after you have sold your yearlings and there is still a little wheat left and it looks like the weeds would make a little extra grazing. And besides, it's been a tough year and you need to try something to make a little extra money. And no need to worry 'cause you've got a corral you can cake them in to. Editor's Note: Jerry Nine, Woodward, Okla., is a lifetime cattleman who grew up on his family's ranch near Laverne, Okla.
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