by Jan Fielden
Whoever said cows and bulls were not smart didn’t know what they were talking about. At least they never took into consideration the cows and bulls at the Red Oak Ranch. We have a bull in the Middle Herd (actually he belongs to our granddaughter) who is quite smart. His name is Thorp (named after one of the planes her Dad has). He is big and I mean big. He is the son of First Knight who also belonged to our granddaughter…she has all the purebreds!! She batted her eye lashes at her “Pappy” when she was four years old and asked for certain cows who then had, of course, purebred heifers or bulls.
First Knight use to stand at the barn, yard fence, he even learned the difference between Wood vs. Vinyl Fences after that, anyplace he could so he could stare at The Colonel to let him know that cubes were on the mind! The Colonel would yell down to First Knight, not now, I’ll get you some later and later turned out to be “right now”. The Colonel has a soft spot for his cows and for his bulls. So, he would walk down to the barn and get cubes for First Knight.
Thorp grew up with this going on and learned from it. He goes to the barn, stares up at the house and The Colonel until he gets cubes. Even if The Colonel is out in the pastures with his truck, Thorp will come up to it and beg for cubes. The other day I looked out the back windows and saw The Colonel in the pasture where Thorp was, and Thorp was gaining ground on the truck! The Colonel stopped, told Thorp he didn’t have any cubes and to go on. Thorp started moving but he walked up from the door of the truck to stand in front of the truck! He blocked The Colonel and they had a stand-off. I think Thorp missed out on that one; first time ever! Smart bulls at the Red Oak Ranch!!
