An older farmer approached me after the Decatur County Soil and Water Conservation District annual meeting. Earlier, I told the audience I would soon step away as Indiana Prairie Farmer editor.

“I enjoyed your stories in Front Porch,” he said. “Did you ever catch those sheep?”

“Yes, we corralled them,” I replied.

“I chuckle at your escapades,” he continued. “I bet they weren’t funny at the time.”

The bull story

No, they weren’t funny at the time. But as wise people say, “It’s easier to laugh than cry.”

Here’s a story I’ve told before. It defines: “It wasn’t funny at the time.”

My late father kept a borrowed beef bull to breed heifers. The stocky, 1,200-pound “lover-boy” Hereford bull named Romeo needed to go home. One summer morning, Dad asked me and my brother, Dave, both college age, to help load Romeo into the 1-ton stock truck.

We set the loading chute against the barn wall, pulling the heavy wooden sliding door tight against it. The pen was only 12 feet wide and 30 feet long. Dave and I would run the bull into the pen, crowding him to the opening and up the chute. Naturally, Dad would stay outside.

Dad saw Dave and I exchanging looks. “Hey, it will work,” he said. “He is so tame, it’s hard to get him to move.”

Yeah, right, Dad.

So, armed with short, plastic pipes better suited to herding pigs, we guided the bull and a couple of heifers into the pen, and then sorted out the heifers. Let the fun begin!

Romeo wanted no part of it. You know how big a 1,200-pound bull looks in a small, dark space? He butted toward my brother, then me. We scooted away. Then, he lowered his head and headed straight for the middle of the door, picking up speed.

Kaboom! Wood flew everywhere. Remember the cartoons where Road Runner slams into a wall, leaving an outline of himself? Romeo left his outline in the busted door.

Dad yelled, his face turning red. “Boys, why didn’t you stop that bull?!”

My brother and I looked at each other and laughed. Dad just stood there. I don’t remember how we finally got Romeo loaded. But I will never forget the cartoonish look of the bull-shaped hole in the door.

Epilogue

Funnier today than when it happened? You bet! It was my pleasure to share these experiences throughout my career. Hopefully, you’ve chuckled, then looked back on some of your troubling moments. Maybe you smiled and laughed at yourself, too.

I am not riding off into the sunset yet, only changing roles to writing about crops across the Midwest. And I don’t have a big front porch. But we have a big back patio under a shade tree.

There might even be sheep around. Stop by anytime, and we will swap stories!