Chiva

Anonymous Poster · Apr 1, 2003

I went to the flea market recently to unload a few baby goats and some excess chickens.

As I was standing around waiting for customers I looked down and spied this tiny little Hispanic girl standing beside me. She couldn‘t have been more than two and I assumed she was lost. I picked her up and distracted her with one of the baby goats. I couldn't leave my post as my girls were off shopping, so I was hoping that her mom would come along and see her sitting up there in the back of the pickup petting the goats or that one of my girls would come back so I could take her to the office.

All I had to snack on at that moment was some fudge covered graham crackers that one of the girls had brought as an impromptu breakfast so I gave her one. She smiled this beatific smile that went all the way to her pretty little eyes and the next thing I knew she was covered in chocolate from forehead to chin. She kept pointing one chubby little finger at the goat saying 'chiva...chiva' which I assumed meant goat, but have since learned means ’kid’.

My youngest daughter finally showed up with a bottle of bubbles and a slinky and I told her what was going on.
"Oh mom, can we keep her?"
As much as I wanted to I told her no, we couldn't keep her, her parents probably wouldn't take it very well. I was tempted though, as I sure couldn't see how anyone would let a pretty little thing like this out of their sight.

I picked her up, told my daughter that I was taking her to the office. About that time a woman from the booth across the way came walking over and claimed her. She and papa had been watching the whole time and figured I was enjoying her company so they let her stay. The woman smiled at me, clearly spoke no English, and carried off the little girl who burst into tears, pointing and exclaiming 'chiva...chiva!'

I was asking twenty five dollars for the goats but toward the end of my stay, here came the little one waddling back across to my site with a twenty dollar bill. It looked as big as a road map in her little hand. I glanced across at papa and nodded my head, pointing at the little runt goat, and he nodded and the deal was done. I never learned her name, but one thing's for sure, she got her 'chiva'.

wroughtn_harv · Apr 1, 2003

Morning Cindi,

It's nice the little girl got her chiva.

Sabado la famlia tiene cabrito. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif (Saturday the family will have bar b que'd goat. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif)

The first question asked by Mexicans when they see my chebos is about the bar b que. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Anonymous Poster · Apr 1, 2003

I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that the goat was destined for burritos at some future point. I grew up in Texas and bbq's almost always consisted of beef pork and goat, maybe a rattlesnales or two. My hubby keeps saying that we're going to put one of ours in the freezer eventually but they are worth more in landscape maintenence at the moment. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

wroughtn_harv · Apr 1, 2003

One of my buds used to pasture a longhorn bull and five or six cows next to my shop. About once a week the bull would walk through the fence or over the gate and bring the cows in for some strange stuff.

I'd call bud and tell him to come and get them when he got a chance. I wouldn't charge him for the feed if he didn't want to make me pay for the mowing and fertilizing.

The longhorn was a toot.

When he was a baby he'd get out on the highway. I'd open the gate to the shop and run him in and then call bud. Each time I'd approach him on the highway he'd give me the look.

It's the same kind of look the pet cat gets from the pet dog when the master is within view, sorta kinda weighing and wondering look.

As he got bigger the look took longer. Common sense and pure old male pride made me not back down. A man has to do what a man has to do.

When he got full grown with a spread of horns all the way from here to there we finally had the battle of wills of all battles of will.

He'd walked over the two wired together cattle panels that constituted the gate between my place and bud's pasture. Him and the cows were in my place doing their thing. But I was leaving and in a hurry plus I didn't want to leave them unattended in the place.

So I started shoo-ing them nice like from the front of my place to the back where the fake gate was on the ground. I was polite and they didn't get in a hurry, especially Toro.

When we were all about in the middle of nowhere to hide he turned around and paused. He gave me the look. My heart stopped. I knew I was in trouble. Them horns were the biggest horns with the sharpest points on anything I'd ever saw in my whole life.

I had a whole bunch of options. Wetting my pants or staining my shorts would take too long and face it, be the end result if he picked one of his options. Places to run to were too far away and even if they were half again closer I was too old to make a difference.

Twenty feet separated us.

He lowered his head.

I did the only thing that made sense in that situation.

I charged him waving my hat in my hand.

I had visions of doing a hand stand on his back as I lept up over him and then landing, breaking both legs.

He blinked. He turned and ran.

I didn't follow.

I couldn't. My legs wouldn't move. I guess they were still in the considering being broken and then trampled mode.

No. I never put myself in that situation again. Your heart only has so many stops programmed into it. Why waste them on boolishness?

Anonymous Poster · Apr 1, 2003

GREAT story! I remember those longhorns from Texas. Whooo, you're a braver person than I am.

Bird · Apr 1, 2003

Harv, when our youngest daughter was 7 years old, we visited the YO Ranch with a large group of people and they took a group of us out on the ranch in a very small old schoolbus and the driver drove right into the middle of a large herd of longhorns and stopped, telling us all about chasing them back and forth across the ranch for various movies and such. Then he asked if anyone wanted to get out and pet them; a question that elicited many quick responses of "Oh, no!!" But our youngest daughter just as quickly and excitedly yelled, "Yes!" (I don't think the kid's ever met an animal she's scared of. It's almost been spooky at times because all animals seem to take to her right off, and even when she was little, neighbors who had bad dogs that everyone else was afraid of would get her to take care of them when they went on vacation). Anyway our driver said, "Oh, I wasn't kidding, they're all pets. But when you go to pet one from the side, just watch his head because if he turns to look at you, he might accidentally knock you down with one of those horns." About two-thirds of the group elected to stay on the bus /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif but we got out and petted a bunch of longhorns. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

wroughtn_harv · Apr 1, 2003

Evening Bird,

If you get a chance take the train at the Ft Worth Zoo to go to Texas Wild, the new exhibit. I built the cedar posts with pipe rails exercise pen in the middle of the turn around for the train.

When they opened the exhibit there was a genuine longhorn and two paint horses on display. The real deal longhorns are tall, five feet plus at the shoulder, lean, and very very smart.

The longhorn was on loan from some ranch in south Texas. He was hand raised and labeled a pet. The owner was there to train the zoo help on handling him. With the owner he was closer to acting like a dog than a steer. But when the owner wasn't around it was interesting.

The owner had told me that down south they can run full tilt through a thicket that us folks can't even think about navigating. He said they are very aware of their horns place at any time under any conditions.

I came to believe him when a couple of the construction guys were sorta teasing the steer while he was in his stall. He was just standing there in the middle of the stall and they were being horse's patoots through the grills over the openings in the wall. Then one put his hand on the grill kinda resting it there if you know what I mean. Looking him right in the eye that steer did a little head twist and that boy almost lost some fingers.

I decided then and there that there isn't a safe angle to approach a longhorn that doesn't want to be approached. A six foot span of horns means the tips are moving three times faster than the head. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Bird · Apr 2, 2003

Harv, I would like to get over to the Ft. Worth zoo again; been more than 20 years since the last time I visited that zoo (when we had small children /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif. I reckon those longhorns going through brush is like moose and a few other critters. It's amazing that they can go through without getting tangled up and caught.

wroughtn_harv · Apr 30, 2003

Here's a chiba picture for Cindi.

Sunday I decided to build a playground for the goats in the holding pen where we keep the tame one and the pregnant one.

This is the pregnant (was) one. If you look careful you will see sandstone nailed to the telephone pole posts. It's easy just use aluminum spikes. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Look at the wooden reel close.