As the floodwaters began to recede this week, the result of the biblical inundation of central Texas, I was finally able to cross Second Creek  a‘horseback to check the calving herd.  I’ve been negotiating with a young man who wanted to buy roping calves, and I had been trying to figure out how to let him know what size our calves were. As I rode this horse that I’m training through the herd a thought struck me. I’ve got my cell phone with me! I can take pictures of calves, then send them to him by message to his phone!

I had taken about half a dozen pictures, so I stopped to load and send them. I dropped the reins on the horse’s neck and he began chomping on the rye grass in front of him. I was in deep concentration for a while working away on my cell phone. Suddenly I was thrown up and back almost losing my seat. I grabbed for the reins which were halfway down the horse’s neck, expecting to hang on for a full-fledged bucking spree. It never came. What I had been unaware of in my tunnel vision was that when I took the last calf picture, I stopped in front of the last calf. I was also right in front of the mama cow. She had taken this intrusion in her space as long as she could stand and finally she “huffed” at my horse with a bluffing charge to defend her darling. I realized that even with all this advanced technology the one thing I had ignored was that nature has not come out with a new model of horse nor cow.

Mother nature – and instinct, still rule!