Chasin' Bulls

For those of you who don't know... before I became a self-proclaimed PRINCESS!!  I was a rancher's daughter.  Let me rephrase that...   I was a rancher's ONLY daughter!

Now being the ONLY daughter of an 'old fashioned' rawhide comes with it's perks.  When most girls were getting fluffy rabbits or chocolate eggs for Easter... I got a horse!  And I'm not talking a 'put on your tiara and ride side-saddle' PONY... I'm talking a neurotic, rodeo-clown killing Appaloosa!!  Yes... I was a bit spoiled.

But being the ONLY daughter... and ONLY child living at home... comes with a few drawbacks.

I've had many years to think about my childhood and I don't think he spoiled me because I was his sweet little girl.  The more I think about it... the more I believe he was spoiling me to distract me from the near death experiences I encountered as a rancher's daughter.

Case in point...

We had a young bull that suddenly had a mental breakdown.  He refused to stay in any pasture that you put him in.  It didn't matter if it was 50 square miles of free range... he wanted to be somewhere else.  To make matters worse, he was too lazy to jump a fence.  Instead, the bovine reject simply turned his head, pressed his horns against the wires, and pushed until the fence gave out!  Imagine all five strings on a guitar snapping at once... thank you very much, now we'll be rewiring ten posts worth of fencing in 110 degree heat.  ASSHOLE!!

The first attempt to corral this dysfunctional beast resulted in a twisted sheet of metal fence panel and a shredded log fence... and my Dad was instantly pissed off!

QUICK FACTS:

1. Most of you are probably under the impression that Nebraska is as flat and treeless as a pancake... but that is not the case in the southwestern corner of the state.  This part of the state has enough canyons to hide a body, hills too steep to walk up, and the cedar trees outnumber both man and livestock 10 to 1. 
2. It is impossible to walk, ride a horse, or drive a vehicle into a patch of cedar trees.  The TREES always win! 

Ironically, a rouge bull can slip right through the cedar trees where he will camp out and hide with his hooves in his ears and his tongue sticking out yelling 'nah nah nah nah boo boo... can't catch me!!'  And that my friends is exactly what this bull planned to do.

So what is a rancher to do but go totally gangster on his ass!!  That's right... to hell with those Eastside, Westside, Blood, Crypt pussies... Hell hath no fury like a pissed off cowboy!

DISCLAIMER: If you're a PETA fanatic, you should stop reading now and go listen to some Melissa Etheridge song!  This was NOT animal cruelty... this was an obvious attempt to kill me!!  Don't you dare sit there and go, "Awww, that poor bull!" because it was MY LIFE at stake... the bull was never in serious danger!!!

In an instant my father comes up with his ingenious plan (aka premeditated attempt on my life).  He jumps in the one-ton pickup and tosses me on the back of the flat bed with a loaded shotgun...

...did you get that?...

...a loaded shotgun, on the back of a flatbed pickup...

...did I mention I'm like 14?...

...and it's loaded...

...oh!... and I weighed like 90 pounds soaking wet...

...are you getting the picture?...

AND OFF WE GO!!!

Barreling through the pasture at 110 miles an hour chasing this super sonic beast on a beeline for the trees. (Hang onto your underwear!!!) 

Image Copyright 2010 - Princess PWT

Through a creek...

over a log...

through a broken fence...

over a two foot deep trench...

all like we're qualifying for a NASCAR race! 

Every two minutes we stop (kinda),

Dad jumps out (by that I mean he has the door open with one foot on the gas and one on the running boards!),

I toss him the shotgun,

BOOM! BANG! BOOM! 

And the bull runs out of the trees headed for the next 'safe haven'. 

Dad passes the shotgun back to me...

AND OFF WE GO!!

Over a cow...

under a windmill...

through a pond...

over what might have been a harrow...

REPEAT THE PREVIOUS INCIDENT...

CONTINUE REPEATING THE PROCESS UNTIL YOU LOSE COUNT...

I have no idea how long this whole escapade lasted.  But in the end, we got the bull home (you could have strained potatoes with his blood soaked hide) and into a trailer where he was promptly shipped off.  I'm sure they had to run a strong magnet over him to get all the lead out of his ass, but he later returned in neatly wrapped steak-flavored packages just as we requested. 

As for my 'happy ending'... Being the ONLY daughter of a rancher also means you've gotta be tough enough to run with the boys.  So you can bet when Dad brought the truck to a tire-smoking halt in the front yard,  I jumped off the back of the truck with a big ol' grin yelling, "That was AWESOME!!!"

Being a girl on a cattle ranch is a lot like trying to show off at a bar. 

You've gotta walk away unassisted and smiling because...

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE PRIDE BABY!!!