Death By Longhorn (Not the Steakhouse)
Not an ordinary day.
Beverly wants me to go with her to some thrift stores to find a metal headboard. She likes to grow them. Or at least plant them.
She plants flowers around them. Or vines.
Honestly, using metal headboards in the landscape is one of her best ideas, and I don’t mind planting them after she brings them home. I just don’t know why I have to be involved in finding them.
But time to suck it up, big boy. She knows I don’t enjoy thrifting and almost never asks me to go with her. Maybe today she just wants my company (snickers to himself).
On this excursion, she’s looking for one that will help disguise the HVAC unit in front of the cabin. With none of her girlfriends around, I agree to go.
We got lucky. At our very first stop, a single iron rail headboard was leaned up against the wall. No footboard, no bed rails, just the headboard.
It has not been priced, so the ladies at the desk suggest one. “How about $45?”
Unintentionally, we go all good-cop, bad-cop on them. Beverly seems willing, but I shake my head, figuring we can find one cheaper somewhere else.
I explain to them we’re basically looking for yard art, hoping to excuse what might be perceived as just trying to lowball them.
It worked though; they make another offer.
“How about $25?” It’s a charitable thrift for an animal shelter, so we accept with no further dickering.
Loading it onto the truck, we feel pretty fortunate. Not only did we find what she was looking for quickly, it’s pretty much exactly what she was looking for.
Even I’m a little excited. My day thrifting day lasted barely half an hour, we’re on our way back, and we can’t wait to see how this looks in the yard.
Such a great idea!
Being in the rural North Georgia hills, our route back to the cabin passes a pasture that forever has had nothing in it but a deer stand. Recently, that’s changed.
This pasture now belongs to someone that wants to raise cattle, mostly Angus, and I reckon for the fun of it - or the beef - has scattered in a few Texas Longhorns.
While we pass this place almost daily, it’s the first time we’re seeing calves. They are not newborns, but we’d not seen them previously.
Nor had we seen the new sign that is both whimsical and ominous.
What I know about Longhorns = nothing.
But I am curious. Is that large thing staring me down the mama or the daddy? It’s facing me so I can’t see the obvious identifiers. Do both have long horns?
Time to phone a friend.
Danny is gen-u-ine country. Lives in the country, talks country, loves Jesus, his mama, his truck and grows his own grits.
He doesn’t raise Longhorns, but he’s got an old Brahma-mix steer with significant hornage named R2. I’m thinking Danny will know the answer.
R2 The Great. (Named by a 3 year old.)
For the record, a steer is a dude cow.
Whoops! A ‘cow’ is a female. The dudes are steer. Or bulls. Steer vs. bulls has to do with certain man-parts and whether or not they still have them.
Danny’s tells me both sexes of Longhorns have long horns.
The problem, I tell him, is that this thing eyeballin’ me is standing in such a way I can’t tell whether it’s the calves’ mama or daddy I’m starting to p--s off by taking pictures so close to them.
Danny recommends a hand-check. I assume he’s suggesting I walk over to a beast with very large death-pokers on either side of its head and feel around on its underside until I figure things out.
Clearly, Danny wants me dead.
About that time, my wife Beverly yells out the truck window, “Gig ‘em!”
‘Gig ‘em!’ is the battle cry of the Texas A&M Aggies. Beverly’s first professional gig (pardon me for that) was with Texas A&M. But the point is, anybody with a nickel’s worth of football knowledge knows Texas Longhorns hate Aggies.
It’s official, Bev wants me dead, too.
Fine. But I don’t know who she thinks is going to plant her headboards.
Headboards in the yard… what a stupid idea.
