Baxter Black

We all have great memories of “the best party.”

I had a party. It lasted 48 hours. I lost my socks, my dignity, two days of my life, six pingpong balls and four pounds.

I was just about to cull the cow
when the boss sees me swingin’ the gate.
“Hold it there, Doc, for a minute yet, ’cause I’ve not quite decided her fate.

Harold has been dismantling his feedlot. He built it over 40 years ago and eventually achieved a 30,000- head capacity. You can imagine the accumulation of steel, rubber, railroad ties, nails, car bodies, pipe, chains, wire, horseshoes and baler twine.

Life is just a bowl of cherries
to a first-rate feedlot hand.
All the gates swing free and easy;

In this column I have often mentioned scours, abscesses, big tits, bad bags, cancer eyes, foot rot, slurry pits, afterbirth, retained placenta, castration, heat cycles, sheep pellets and snotty noses.

In rural America, farmers and “rural lifestylers” are often neighbors. Seeking a place to better raise their children, to retire in peace or to escape the continuing anxiety of the city, they move to the country and build a house on a 2-acre plot.