"God is great, beer is good, people are crazy"

I have come to a conclusion: People are stupid.

Allow me to expound upon this astonishing revelation. Just this past week Steve and I were out in the wheat field mowing down what should have been beautiful swaths of wheat. In reality the majority of what was cut was an ugly weed known far and wide as ragweed. The silent killer. I affectionately name the plant as such because only two people on the farm are not allergic to the pollen produced by this pestilent plant. Myself and Katie. Mostly because we rock, but a secondary reason is that everyone rocks a little bit less.

As I came in from the field to grab some water for myself and Steve, also to check the time and see if we needed to start on evening chores, Katie comes walking determinedly towards me. I stopped because she looked ready to kill someone, once she got to the barn where I was she calmly told me that "Claire just gored a kid". I look the question "Are you serious" at her to which she replied with the details. Turns out this little 4 year old girl thought that it would be a great idea to walk up to a 1,200 pound animal and scream at it because she saw a spider. Normaly Claire wouldn't bat an eye at the scream, but the kid started waving her hands around and bopped Claire on the nose. - This is not a good thing. Cattle have very sensitive noses, kind of like a dog or a cat. - Claire shook her head and caught the kid in the stomach. The kid was fine, but cried bloody murder ran away and thought that God was coming down to smite her for her wicked ways. Or something like that.

Mom and Dad came running into the house to get a staff member and tell us that the cow is dangerous. Katie asked them what happened, they tell the story. Katie checks out the kid and sees a three inch abrassion, some swelling, and the start of what I'm sure by now is a pretty bruise. Katie reminds the good traumatized parents that there is a sign at the begining of the trail saying, DO NOT PET OR FEED THE ANIMALS. Brainiac that Dad is says, "No there isn't". The reply falls from the lips, "Yes there is, right before you come to the hog lot on a green sign".

Katie filled out an incident report to cover the bases then came out to tell "the boys". I just looked at her and said, "OK. Anything you want me to do?" as I'm first aid trained. She said, "Nope, just don't say it's our fault". Oke Doke, I can do that. She goes off and tells Steve the story.

Later that day when Steve and I are milking Claire we got to talking about the rough day that Claire had, and what was on the agenda for the next day. Steve stopped milking for a second pats Claire and says, "Go for the heart next time sweetie, prove that Darwin was right". I laughed at the time and asked him what we should do to avoid this in the future, if anything. He resumed milking and said that all we can do is stress that the animals have horns for a reason and that cattle are not the same thing as petting a dog.

The next day we took measurements of the boys and the girls, just to see how much they have grown over the past year. Claire weighed in at an impressive 1,213 lbs. Beau moved the scale over to 1,450 lbs. Luke "Big Boy" weighed 1,536 lbs. T-Bone weighed 1,005 lbs. And "Little One" 6 week old Friendly weighed in at 192. In this past week Friendly finally out weighed me at 215, and has moved on to eating solid food. She still gets confused about the difference between hay and straw, but that's alright. She'll pick it up eventually.

Anyway.

People are stupid. If a sign says DO NOT...anything, you probably should pay attention and oh, don't do what you were about to do.

Buck