One More bull and Another Fire.

In the spring before he passed away, Fred purchased a black Angus bull to replace Chimp. The bull was in Creston not too far away and Fred asked Ed Davidson if he would go and pick it up for him. I went along for the ride. We loaded Fred’s racks on the back of Ed's truck and I remember him saying the bull would probably lay down and sleep most of the way once we started driving. Finding the right farm took awhile and then we were also delayed trying to load the bull but eventually we were on the road home again. On the ferry, the bull still had not settled down and continually circled around in the truck. A ferry attendant actually twiddled his fingers at the bull and I asked him if he wanted to keep those fingers or what? Peoples foolishness with large animals sometimes astounded me. Fred had called it wrong on that bull and he never laid down until about half a mile from home, but it made no difference really.

Although it would not be politically correct these days, Judy named the bull “Nigger Charlie”. He was not a nice bull like Chimp had been and it took very little to raise his hackles up and we simply did not trust him at all! One day we had to drive Charlie from one field to the next one. When Edie heard we girls were apprehensive he decided to help us and came out armed with a small fence post. Charlie had been known to charge when agitated but Edie ignored our comments. We got the bull to the gate and nearly through when he decided to go for Edie!  To his credit Edie got one crack in but

but the bull kept coming and the next minute we saw Edie pinwheeling through the air with papers and pens and cigarette packages all flying about. The bull got by us as we went to see if Edie was okay. He was and actually laughed and laughed about it. Once more we had to start all over again. One of the older calved had done this same thing to Edie one day. He stuck hi leg out to stop it and the calf was just too solid and once again Edie had been airborne. I really did not think he was a very good cow person but he was always game anyway and seemed to have no fear at all.

   The Aldingers always supplied Jude and I with some awful vehicle to drive and we hated them and never felt very safe driving them. One such vehicle was a blue van they had acquired. It went, but barely, and there were several gears that just did not work. The other thing that did not work was the passenger door! Jude did not have a Canadian license so she was not impressed that she had to get in the drivers door and slide over all the time. This van she dubbed the “Hippy Van” and everyone soon called it that. The battery for this van was behind the drivers seat and at some time someone had removed the battery cover. We had a lot of junk in the back and baling wire and cloth sacks from the alfalfa seed were some of the junk. On this morning we had already been out to check the cow at Lofsted and were coming up the driveway to the farm, when Judy looked over at me and started yelling “FIRE! We're on FIRE!” I guess she could see flames licking up behind my head.  She hit the door on her side once or twice and then came right over top of me and was out and running down the road before I could understand anything! I decided to investigate and see what was on fire and the wire had been on the battery and had heated up enough to light the bags on fire. All it took was to pull the bags out and stomp on them. When Jude returned we had a good laugh and I told her I was really glad she chewed he nails or I could have been scratched to death with her departure. I replaced the battery cover and we never had another fire while we drove that van. Another lesson learned!