The Nutcracker

 

Life wasn't always perfect on the farm. Some things really sucked, like getting a kick in the junk by a cow of such a predisposition and practiced in the art. Dad had a good friend and neighbour that would hardly have hurt a fly, but he sure hurt Dad--twice. Once Dad was holding a big spike for him to drive. He missed the spike and hit Dad's index finger so hard he burst it open like a boiled sausage. Apparently neither learning from their mistake, Dad held a stake for a concrete form for him with his boot... and he missed (with a sledge this time) again and made Dad's right big toe match his right index finger. There wasn't a third time for some reason. They remained friends with a mutual respect for each other until Dad's passing. And Bill always spoke well of him thereafter. Dad never held it against him, either. But you can bet your boots it sucked each time.

Winter sucked. Losing livestock sucked. Not having that stuff called money sucked. And what I am about to attempt to describe from Cory's memory sucked so bad my own developing memory blotted it out completely for the good of my sanity.

The Bowes operation being predominately a beef farm, every Spring came the task of dehorning and castrating and vaccinating and tagging our beef stockers that we had bought as 300 pounders in the Fall. It was rough and tumble work, with the young bulls wanting no part of it whatsoever. And who could blame them? They were stuffed into a metal squeeze, and:

*had their necks clamped in a pipe vise

*had their muzzles drawn down into a hole in a table by a chain thrown over the back of their head and winched down to an absolutely immovable state

*had their horns cut off by a tool that looked like a combination giant set of pliers and a portable Guillotine; and that's exactly what it was

*had a couple of needles jammed in their neck and the cold fluid contents of vaccinations and vitamins shot home under pressure by the syringe's plunger

*had liquid goop poured on their backs for parasite control

*had an identification tag clipped in one ear

*had a fly tag clipped in the other ear

*had a triangle shaped piece snipped out of that ear

*had any noticeable warbles squeezed out of their backs like popping giant zits

*and... had their testicles felt up, pulled down, stuffed in yet another giant set of pliers called Burdizzos, and... the spermatic cord crushed and destroyed by pressure in the same way you can get a cut on your hand while wearing a glove without the glove itself being cut.

So, that day sucked for them, and big time. Hearing the bellows of the ones before them didn't exactly make anyone want to be followers, so it turned into one big rodeo. We were small potatoes, so we didn't have the most advanced livestock handling equipment available. In fact, we had none at all. We rented the squeeze for the day from Keith Bennett. And we got whoever was dumb enough to show up to help.

It was rough work, and you could get hurt in a hundred ways and quickly. By this time, some of the faster growers were hitting 6 and 7 hundred pounds, and they could toss a 175 pound young lad... anywhere they wanted to. You had to be fast, agile, alert, and strong and tough and get over anything less than a broken bone right there while you worked. We called it, 'tough as nails'. You denied being hurt; when asked, "Tough as nails!" was your response. Even if you were hurt so bad you nearly wanted to cry. You worked through it, or walked it off if it was a good one. You were scuffed and scraped and bruised at the end of the day, and hopefully hadn't ruptured your spleen.

The hazards of working frightened and sometimes angry young bulls in close quarters were so many it is hard to count. Getting your foot stomped on was the most common, and resulted in a dance we called 'The Barnyard Hop'. Having a bull turn the tables on you with a deadly vengeance was a distinct possibility, but fortunately didn't happen too often. Getting slammed against a wall by a frightened animal was going to happen; that was just about inescapable. If they got you with their side, it wasn't too bad. If they got you with their shoulder or hip, it could knock the wind right out of you, but you gasped, "t...t...tough as nails!", and went on.

As Cory and I got bigger and stronger in our teens, and because we healed faster than the older men and it was good for our development (and the older men were smarter and could simply pull rank), we took on the lion's share of the rough and tumble part. Dad and Uncle Charlie (or Ralph Broome) would take care of the head, and Cory and I took care of herding them into the squeeze. And the castrating.

Now, to castrate a bull, you don't have an exactly willing participant on their part. Very few, if any, will just stand there and let you just completely undo their hopeful destiny. It's not just surly old milk cows that can kick you into next week. So, Cory's job was to help keep me safe while I did the dirty deed. He would carefully get into the squeeze beside the bull, and grab its tail and pull it straight up over its back. Theoretically, that would disable its ability to kick. I have, in my time, met a few bulls that showed that to be only a theory and not a sure thing.

Anyway...

Cory's main risk in this was getting his feet tromped on hard by a hoof, or getting his innards rearranged by the bull rubbing against the side of the squeeze. Via his sandwiched body. Once he got the tail hard over its back, though, the fight was pretty well in his favour.

Now, supposedly, it was safe for me to move in to the former line of fire. Most were virtually helpless by this time, with their neck in a vise, their head clamped down with their muzzle in a hole, and Cory holding their tail as far forward over their back with both hands as he could.

Often they would put their hind feet together, and I would have to pry them apart. Cory would then hook his ankle inside theirs next to him and help hold them apart for me to do my thing.

In their nervousness and fear, their scrotums would be uptight. Now you know where the term comes from. I would reach up, and take both testicles in my hand and tug them down to expose the area of the scrotum above them where only the cord resided. I would then pull down usually the left one first, and work the jaws of the chrome Burdizzos over the cord, feel with my thumb and index finger to make sure it was in there and hadn't wiggled out, and get the one black handle against the inside of my thigh, while I started to bear down with the opposite hand and arm to close it, and with a warning to everyone: "Here we go... " grab the other handle in my other hand and clamp down hard. This is where it all came together... or completely and utterly went South, with me getting the kick of my life in the chest or the face, and Cory suddenly having a writhing, plunging, absolutely mad to escape animal on his hands that out-weighed him by five times.

Usually, it would just be a very deep, long moan of misery and a sagging of the bull's back legs and belly as I closed the Burdizzos over center into a lock. Proper technique was to hold for 3-5 seconds to get a good separation, then release. That was one cord and therefore one testicle, out of commission for good.

As men, the other ones all sympathetically "ooo"'d and kind of went funny and soft in the legs when I closed the Burdizzos and the bull sagged and moaned his end of masculinity lament.

Now the second time around the bull knew what was coming when he felt me grab the other one. "Hang on to that friggin' tail Cory... "

"I've got it..."

I would repeat the process, and release him. Cory would gingerly ease his way out so as to not startle the victim into a defensive kick, and that was our end done. The needling and tagging would then take place at the head end, and, lastly, the dehorning, in case there was projectile bleeding so the guys working that end didn't 'get painted'. The winch would quickly be tripped to freewheel with the (now, officially) steer gratefully flinging his head up, followed by a simultaneous expert release of the neck squeeze and head gate at once. The fully processed, and now ready for summer pasture animal would leap out of the squeeze and literally high-tail it out into the field, free at last.

The gate would be slammed shut and we'd go on to the next one. And the next one. And the next one, until lunch. And then the next one and the next one and the next one in the afternoon until we were thankfully all done.

All these things were variable, mind you, though, and sometimes all didn't go according to the script. I am going on and trusting Cory's memory here, because apparently mine has completely failed me, and most likely for the betterment of my somewhat fragile psyche.

We'd romped a few through, and were getting good at it. It always took a few to remind ourselves of what worked best last year. We got another one in. Dad and Uncle Charlie had it secured at their end. Cory got in and got control of the tail. I moved in and... inexplicably looked up just as that bull decided to completely relieve the entire, hot, very odoriferous, and rather liquid contents of the aft end of his voluminous, four stomach digestive tract all over my unsuspecting upturned face and head.

Cory puts it somewhat more succinctly: "You looked up and he just totally **** all over your face!"

Being that the squeeze, the animal, Cory, Dad and Uncle Charlie would have all been in my way, I assume my natural farmboy athletic ability combined with the spontaneous release of a likely mighty dose of adrenaline assisted in my scramble over all of them to get outside into the fresh air. Apparently, though, fresh air wasn't good enough to alleviate all of my current problems, and a frantic (possibly very vocal) sprint across the barnyard ended with yours truly submersing his head in the ice cold water trough and giving it a very thorough swishing around complete with lots of bubbles before coming back up for that aforementioned fresh air. And immediately doing it all over again.

Something else that coincidentally happened at precisely the exact same time as my particularly unfortunate event seemed to tickle everyone's funny bone, because they were all laughing helplessly and uproariously when my flash-frozen head re-emerged from under the water. Fortunately it wasn't me they were laughing so hard at or my feelings might have been just a wee little bit hurt.