Awhile back I’d written a column about how our food was hard-earned and how sometimes we’ve had to chase it down. That column was inspired by an event that happened with our butcher critter.
He’s been kept separate from the heifer calves by a corral fence and an old cattle panel my husband custom fit over the water tank so the steer and the calves could both still drink from the same tank. One morning my husband and I pulled up to feed the calves and the steer and discovered the steer milling around with the calves. He’d gotten out by jumping over the cattle panel.
Anybody who’s been around weaned calves knows how skittish they are whenever you try to walk around or towards them. The key to dealing with heifer calves is being calm, quiet, and slow movements around them. Getting the steer separated from the calves to get him back on his side of the corral fence would’ve made an ideal sitcom episode. It took several attempts to get the steer separated from the bunch because every time we got close enough to cut the steer out the calves would scatter like barn cats. Once we got him back in Art scrounged around and found some scrap metal and baling wire and together we remedied the problem.
 This is just one more reason why our household thinks beef tastes so good when we sit down to a steak dinner.
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