My life as a cattle hauler

(Can you believe this lady, she must be crazy)

My parents just never knew what I would bring home back in the days when we lived on the farm.

After I got old enough to drive, a whole new world was opened up to me. New travels, new roads and lots of new experiences were now at my beck and call.
Since we lived in a two story farm house, my upstairs room was pretty much off limits to everyone.

There would be days though, after I had continually failed to pick up my clean laundry off of the steps and Mama would have to enter into those four walls with the clean laundry just to clear a path on the stairway.

One time, she entered my domain to find I had given haven to three baby ducks. They were perfectly contect waddling around in their box, but after they were discovered they had to graduate to the pond down by the house.

Naturally, stray dogs always found their way to my car. For a time, there seemed to be no end to new wet noses and four cuddly paws showing up on our porch.

Dog food finally got a little too expensive for my checking account and when I was told I would start replacing the eggs the dogs were eating, I thought it was time to slow down on overpopulating our farm with dogs.

Perhaps one of the strangest animals I have ever brought home in my car was a calf. Not only once did I do this, but twice.

The first one was a black Angus calf that a mother had rejected. When my friend told me about the calf, I asked him how much he wanted for it. He replied, "five bucks." I pulled the money out of my pocket and headed toward the car.

"You are going to take it home in your car?" he asked. Of course, I was; my only means of transportation was a three seater station wagon and I sure wasn't going to drive all the way back home just to get a truck. Besides, the calf was just a few days old. How much trouble could he be?
He wasn't; he rode quietly. As I arrived home, showing off my new acquisitiion, Daddy proceeded to tell me how he would not bottle feed that calf for me at all and that he was totally my responsibility.

The next time, however, was a different story. At another farm, another time, the guy told me he had a white charlais calf he needed to get rid of. Now who better to take that cow than the bottle feeing queen of North Logan?

Well, we loaded that calf in my station wagon, much to his amazement, and off to home I went.

This calf didn't ride as well as the other one I had brought home.

He continually jumped over those three seats back and forth; when he landed in the front seat with me one time, I began to worry about my safety as well as his.

I stopped in Lewisburg (about five miles from home) to see if Daddy would come and get the wayward calf in his truck. When he asked where I was, he told me since I had come that far, just to come the rest of the way and maybe this would teach me about trying to bring cows home in a car.

After trying to explain to the calf that he was just going to have to settle down, I headed my car home. Driving very slowly, gripping the steering wheel and learning to duck when needed, I made it home.

Now a puppy licking your face while driving can be really sweet and usually brings a smile to your face, but calf slobbers are another story. That was the end to my cattle hauling days.