This is a true story, only the names and towns have been changed to protect the people in it. This all started just after Thanksgiving of last year. A friend named Jim and I were doing a all night watch for the WHO program that our church participates in. WHO stands for Winter Housing Overflow, and it helps put homeless men and women in shelters for the cold winter nights. I have done this for several years now, and enjoy the time spent in helping in the shelters.
Jim and I were going over the old age complaints common to us folks, ache joints and especially knees that grind bone against bone. Jim was saying that he thought he would have his knees operated on after the first of the year, and would probably be using a cane someone had given him from Texas. This cane had previously been the penis of a long horn bull from a Texas ranch. He said he thought he would probably even use it when he came to the church services till his knee was healed.
Fast forward two months later when Kelly and Bob and I were headed to a basketball game at a nearby school. In walking to the arena, again ache's and pains were brought up in our conversation, and I don't know why but I mentioned Jim's comment about the cane he might be using. Kelly and Bob burst out laughing for they had apparently never heard about such a thing and to think that Jim might actually use it.
We move to today. I'm trying to get in some shut-eye so I'll be ready to spend the evening from 9:00 to 6:00 wide awake. It won't work, I'm wired and my mind is quite active in many ways. I go back 60 years or more to the time on the farm where we lived. It was near The Otter Creek Stock Farm, pictured elsewhere on this blog. This was a picture of my grandfather who had died in 1917, so I know that this is a very old picture, in fact a quick research says it was from a 1907 Iowa Atlas, probably from Linn County where we lived.
We raised both hogs, cows, chickens and occasionally ducks. As a farm boy I knew that the females had to be bred if we were to have piglets, calves, chicks or ducklings. I knew what took place but had no clue as to why the action produced results. I'm older now, and hopefully better learned in those things, including the proagation of children.
I knew that when the cows started jumping one another, it was time for the bull to enter the picture so that the cow could be bred. I remember dad would sometimes take a stick for some protection, and enter the barnyard where this event would take place, and I guess with the stick, he would keep the other cows away so the bull could do his thing. He could also keep the cow that was "in heat" headed in the right way so the bull could mount her properly. That help was probably not needed, but by now the bull would have sniffed the cow's rear and would have gotten a smell of the vaginal secretion.
At times, wanting to see the action, but not to be seen watching it, I would hurry myself into the barn where I could peek out through a crack in the barn door or through a knot hole in the door. If you've never seen such an event take place, it happens rather quickly. The bull on strong rear legs, rears his front legs up and onto the cows rear quarters, and he enters her and in one lunge and plunge it is over and he removes himself. He doesn't stay around for another stab at her, it is over, and if the "sticking the cow" is successful she is "in calf" if not and another month goes by, this event will happen again.
I am much older now and I know that we stopped using bulls right after the end of World War II, our herd of cows were much smaller then and not profitable enough to have our own bull, so we used artificial insemination. A cow would come "in heat" and dad would get on the phone and later in the day, a inseminator would arrive, go to the barn and would proceed to have the cow bred. This was another event which I was able to observe again and again. I do know that he liked to have a bucket of warm water as he needed to wash his groping arm with soapy water before he was to clean the cow's anus of manure, and again to wash up after the breeding was over. It was necessary for him to put his hand and arm into the anus to guide the long glass tubing (later stiff plastic) which was loaded with seman into the vagina and deep into the right place. Again, I didn't understand it all, but knew that about 8 months later if the breeding was successful a calf would be born from the same place the glass tubing was inserted.
Who says a farm boy knows all about the birds and the bees? Not this kid, I think God must have left part of my brain out when he made me for I hadn't a clue of all these things.
Well, tonight this same Jim and I will be doing a overnight thing at the homeless shelter, and I'm thinking that his "cane" will come up again when I ask him if he is still going to have a knee replacement. My next blog may explore this kind of a cane could be possible, we will just have to wait and see.
Gpa Howard
Jim and I were going over the old age complaints common to us folks, ache joints and especially knees that grind bone against bone. Jim was saying that he thought he would have his knees operated on after the first of the year, and would probably be using a cane someone had given him from Texas. This cane had previously been the penis of a long horn bull from a Texas ranch. He said he thought he would probably even use it when he came to the church services till his knee was healed.
Fast forward two months later when Kelly and Bob and I were headed to a basketball game at a nearby school. In walking to the arena, again ache's and pains were brought up in our conversation, and I don't know why but I mentioned Jim's comment about the cane he might be using. Kelly and Bob burst out laughing for they had apparently never heard about such a thing and to think that Jim might actually use it.
We move to today. I'm trying to get in some shut-eye so I'll be ready to spend the evening from 9:00 to 6:00 wide awake. It won't work, I'm wired and my mind is quite active in many ways. I go back 60 years or more to the time on the farm where we lived. It was near The Otter Creek Stock Farm, pictured elsewhere on this blog. This was a picture of my grandfather who had died in 1917, so I know that this is a very old picture, in fact a quick research says it was from a 1907 Iowa Atlas, probably from Linn County where we lived.
We raised both hogs, cows, chickens and occasionally ducks. As a farm boy I knew that the females had to be bred if we were to have piglets, calves, chicks or ducklings. I knew what took place but had no clue as to why the action produced results. I'm older now, and hopefully better learned in those things, including the proagation of children.
I knew that when the cows started jumping one another, it was time for the bull to enter the picture so that the cow could be bred. I remember dad would sometimes take a stick for some protection, and enter the barnyard where this event would take place, and I guess with the stick, he would keep the other cows away so the bull could do his thing. He could also keep the cow that was "in heat" headed in the right way so the bull could mount her properly. That help was probably not needed, but by now the bull would have sniffed the cow's rear and would have gotten a smell of the vaginal secretion.
At times, wanting to see the action, but not to be seen watching it, I would hurry myself into the barn where I could peek out through a crack in the barn door or through a knot hole in the door. If you've never seen such an event take place, it happens rather quickly. The bull on strong rear legs, rears his front legs up and onto the cows rear quarters, and he enters her and in one lunge and plunge it is over and he removes himself. He doesn't stay around for another stab at her, it is over, and if the "sticking the cow" is successful she is "in calf" if not and another month goes by, this event will happen again.
I am much older now and I know that we stopped using bulls right after the end of World War II, our herd of cows were much smaller then and not profitable enough to have our own bull, so we used artificial insemination. A cow would come "in heat" and dad would get on the phone and later in the day, a inseminator would arrive, go to the barn and would proceed to have the cow bred. This was another event which I was able to observe again and again. I do know that he liked to have a bucket of warm water as he needed to wash his groping arm with soapy water before he was to clean the cow's anus of manure, and again to wash up after the breeding was over. It was necessary for him to put his hand and arm into the anus to guide the long glass tubing (later stiff plastic) which was loaded with seman into the vagina and deep into the right place. Again, I didn't understand it all, but knew that about 8 months later if the breeding was successful a calf would be born from the same place the glass tubing was inserted.
Who says a farm boy knows all about the birds and the bees? Not this kid, I think God must have left part of my brain out when he made me for I hadn't a clue of all these things.
Well, tonight this same Jim and I will be doing a overnight thing at the homeless shelter, and I'm thinking that his "cane" will come up again when I ask him if he is still going to have a knee replacement. My next blog may explore this kind of a cane could be possible, we will just have to wait and see.
Gpa Howard
Labels: A Cane for all uses
posted by GRANDPAHOWARD at 1:20 PM
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