“Don’t Worry Boys…She’s Got Foot Rot!” Part Two

We were just easing off into those dern palmettos with Dad a hollering, “Bring her on boys, I’m fixing to rope her!”

We bailed on in them, and went to stomping around and hollering as loud as we could, hoping all the time she wasn’t going to turn and come back out our way. Every ounce of our will power was just a shoving her out towards Dad.

Why did we want her to go out his way and not ours? Simple. There was only three of us, and besides…he had the rope!

Well sure enough she come busting out the front side of them palmettos like a late freight, and we heard Dad yell, here she comes now, followed immediately by…I got her! Then total silence, for about two seconds!

All of a sudden, it sounded as if two big bull gators had squared off and went to fighting, then, just a couple seconds later it began to sound as if one of them ole gators had gone to whipping up on the other one pretty good like!

It also began to sound as if the one getting whipped was speaking some form of English in between grunts of getting the air knocked out of him! We all began to have thoughts that if that ole cow had done gone and whipped Dad, it would be mighty ugly of us to keep on chasing her around, and around this dern place, her with a hurt foot and all!

On top of that, if she’d done whipped Dad, him being as tough as he was and her hurt to boot, well the three of us didn’t see any need in our getting our butts kicked too!

We come around them palmettos, all of us with pieces of lighter knot in our hands just in case she was waiting to get on us too, and there Dad was.

The man was rising to his knees, his shirt tore open, his face, chest, and britches black from the sand, and little scratches all over him from where she’d drug him through the brush before she finally tore the rope outta his hand!

Which means she’s running across the pastures and scrub with a rope around her neck, and foot rot in a hind leg. By Gawd Dad was right…we was a wearing her down!

Honestly, he looked like he’d been out sorting panthers! He was a pitiful sight to behold, but as he kept getting up you could see his face getting redder and redder, which meant he was getting madder and madder.

When he finally stood up he said, “She don’t know it yet, but her ass is headed for Apopka!”

Now Dad has always been a penny pincher of the worst kind! I’ve seen the man be up at the lake, lose his best plug that he was just slaughtering the bass with, drive to Eustis, price the plugs, leave the dern store without one, stammering that they wanted too much money for it??

With this point in your mind now, I asked John, “Watch ya reckon we gonna do, now that he’s lost his rope?” John looked at me and said, “We’re never gonna leave this place now! Not with that rope hanging off that ole cow’s head for sure! I was with him yesterday and seen him pay thirty dollars for that lasso, and he’ll never leave here without that!

I just hung my head because I knew John was right. New rope, thirty dollars, and an ole cow running around with it hanging off her neck? Yessir, we were indeed here for the duration.

The cow this time runs almost all the way up to the front pasture, but stops once again in a big stand of pines. We approach her one more time, and I’m telling you, it was about 90 degrees, and that ole cow was hot, and we were hot right along with her.

We’d brought no water, mainly because we really didn’t have any idea what we were going to be doing, so we were beginning to become aggravated ourselves. Then the situation worsened…at least for Shane it did.

I don’t know what made her do it, but for some reason she just all of a sudden singled him out of our bunch, goes to blowin, and takes off after Shane.

It was the funniest thing we’d ever seen, I’m guessing probably because it wasn’t any of the rest of us she was after! We were in hysterics!
That cow was right on Shane’s tail, him running just as hard as he possibly could, and actually we were quite impressed with how fast he was moving. We started hollering, “Slow down some Shane and give her a chance! The poor things got a bad leg!”

I swear though, when the cow would get close enough behind him to hook him with her horns, she’d drop her head to hook him, and EVERY TIME she dropped her head…Shane would GAIN a step.

Now the very funniest part to all of this was that you have to remember Shane weighed about 235 pounds, and was pretty tough and stout as well. He also was in his younger twenties so he was at least 12 years younger than everyone else in the pasture with him.

But you should have seen that guy motoring across that pasture and the ole cow right behind him, doing her very best to catch him, and him doing his very best to prevent that wreck from happening.

What really had us all carrying on about how funny it was, is the fact that Shane, as big and strong as he is, literally was screaming… ”DADDY,” he’d stop just a second, then holler, “DADDY”… hold off another second or two, then holler, “DADDY,” the whole time he was running across that pasture! We were in stitches!

This went on for not near as long as Shane probably thought it did I’m sure, but by his quick feet and agility, which he’d never shown to any us of before, HE HAD wore that ole cow down. Poor ole thing had run all over the whole place, and finally, had just about run outta gas.

She eased back up in some pines, and we sent Shane in to grab the end of that rope dragging behind her, and when he did, he wrapped it around a pine tree 3-4 times, and the ole cow was finally caught!

Why did we send Shane into the pines to snag the end of that rope? That’s easy enough to answer. He’d already shown all of us, that he COULD out run her, that’s why!

We got the truck and trailer, pulled it up beside her, took the rope from the tree and ran it through the front of the trailer, and then we just drug her on into the trailer! As Dad had broadcast after taking that whipping from her earlier, her ass indeed, was now headed to Apopka!

We got her to Dad’s house where there WERE cowpens, and penned her for about ten days. She ate good while there, got her some shots of antibiotics, and her foot was rinsed daily with antiseptic wash.

After that, she was as good as new. She took one more ride back down to Yeehaw, and was home for good!

Thanks for coming back and visiting once again. We sure appreciate you guys doing so, and enjoy hearing from you.

You have a great day, and God Bless!

Dub and Deb