Sunday afternoon – Selling Rion
Well, we sold Rion on Sunday afternoon. I was getting myself ready for this day now for many weeks, and to be honest I was ready for it.
Rion and I have come a long way this past year . He came to the farm on Sept 21, 2011, eager to get into trouble and also winning my heart. I know that I was told that not to get too close to him and to be honest I really tried not to, but it was hard. I knew that he had to be sold because that’s just how he was made.
No Ears checking out the new cow in the yard, Rion
So from having Rion crawling under the fence to eat my new flowers and trees, to having him walk down the middle of the road during the day when we were gone, to having his head laying on my lap while he was bloating in the cow yard, he has brought us a lot of good times and some challenging times – but mostly just a lot of smiles.
We set a time that we were going to sell him on Sunday, and I asked Daryl if he would video me with Rion while he was running through the cow yard. Now for some reason I had a bag of apples that I bought at the grocery store in the refrigerator (OK, I never said that Rion wasn’t spoiled, did I?) and it seemed like a good day for some treats. So when Rion and the other cows saw Daryl out by the yard with the camera, they knew that something was up. I kept asking Daryl to hide, but it was too late, he didn’t understand that I really meant for him to hide. So Rion wouldn’t do any of his tricks for anything. So next was to take a picture. I had so many pictures of Rion, but none with both of us. Again, they were nervous. So I asked Daryl to just move out of the area and I put the cows into the shed and that went much better. But when he backed the trailer up the to the shed, Rion got this terrible look in his eyes and I knew that he was going to try to jump either over the gate or over the gate and me! I tried to act cool and was talking kinda calm, but after he came around me a couple of times, I decided that maybe I should really show him that I meant it. In the past he’d ‘head butt’ me if he didn’t think that I was walking fast enough with corn in the cow yard, and I don’t know how much he weighs but it’s probably over 1500 pounds. And let’s just say he’d win if he wanted to pick a fight with me. But I wanted the cows to get loaded so we could just get this over with, and it really went pretty well. Not only did we sell Rion, but we also sold Sassy and Stormy. I was sad to see Sassy go, but to be honest – I never really cared too much for Stormy. He was so wild and mean.
The cows were loaded and heading North
With the cows in the trailer, Daryl was driving out of the yard and then it happened. No Ears saw what we were doing. At first she just stood in the yard and bellowed, but it didn’t take too long that she started to chase the trailer. When we got the trailer out of the yard, she was having just a terrible time! She just stood there and kept bellowing and bellowing.
We drove to the sale lot and when we were unloading them, I told the one guy that was standing there that Rion really likes to jump. He looked at me like I was crazy and said that there was no way that any cow could jump over any of their gates. Well, I’ve seen Rion jump over gates in our yard and not even touch the top of them, so I guess they can’t say that I didn’t warn them. I still was feeling OK with everything, well until we got home. No Ears came running when Daryl backed the trailer to the barn to clean it up. I think she thought that we brought the gang back home with us. Once she realized that we didn’t, she just stood in the yard and made some terrible noises all night long. And I’m not kidding you when I mean all night long. We were laying in bed when Daryl asked me what that noise was. I said it was No Ears crying outside. He said ‘oh’ and went back to sleep, but I had to put the blanket over my head to drown it out.
No Ears was really sad
So how did my Monday go? I had an early meeting in the morning, and in the meeting there was someone who made a comment to me that I didn’t really care for. Now I’m not sure if it was really as bad as I was thinking it was, but if there was ever a day that you were going to pick an argument with me, I’m just saying that this wasn’t the day! And at the end of the day, I met Daryl in town for nachos and a couple of beers to help celebrate Rion and all the fun he gave to our farm.
He will be missed.
Having my picture taken with Rion