Baxter Black

Yer lookin’ at a feller with no tennis shoes, a ’76 GMC pickup, an outhouse and a learning permit for a cellphone. But, lest you lump me into that group of stodgy ol’ dinosaurs who cling to the days of Garth Brooks, pygmy Angus and real spare tires, let me assure you I have stepped boldly into the modern world of manly footwear.

It’s coming. Political correctness in the animal kingdom. I have conferred with those fervent homogenizers of the once colorful and descriptive English language to formulate the following list:

Well, it’s dog days in the feedlot now that summer’s nearly done
I been loafin’ through the cattle but the steers don’t suffer none

Betty said her dad had a bull that kept jumpin’ the fence. She wondered if I knew any surefire cures for fence-jumpin’ bulls. I asked her what they’d tried already.

I was the veterinarian for a livestock company in the Northwest. We had 10,000 cows on six ranches in five states with a progressive, well-managed cow-calf operation. The year was 1976.

In the sandhills of Nebraska
stands a monument of wills
Where man has staked his claim
to them blowin’, rollin’ hills