A Cowboy's Opinion on National Animal ID

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cowz

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Jan 10, 2007
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A West Texas cowboy was herding cows in a remote pasture when
suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.
The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban
sunglasses
and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy,

"If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your
herd, will you give me a calf?"

The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his
peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer,
connects it to his AT&T cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the
Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get
an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA
satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and
exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the
image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-
SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email
on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-
tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the
cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says
the cowboy. He watches the young man select one of the animals and
looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you
exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay,
why not?"

"You're a consultant for the government." says the cowboy.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess
that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here
even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I
already knew, to a question I never asked; and you don't know
anything about my business........ Now give me back my dog!  :p
 

red

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Jan 20, 2007
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LaRue, Ohio
(lol) (lol) (lol) (lol)

Oh cowz! You just can't imagine how bad I needed a good laugh today! Thanks to you, Brahmergirl & Justme for pulling me out of a really bad mood!!! (clapping)

Love you guys!

Red
 

chambero

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Feb 12, 2007
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Location
Texas
I take offense to that joke!  I am a consultant and I do a lot of work for the federal and state government.  And I assure you there are many people that would put me in that category.  Although I'm obviously not  ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)

An Unfortunate Very True Story:  Several years ago I found myself deep in the woods of Louisiana mapping some roads used by the Army for training.  I had a couple of other guys with me in a rental car.  I had pulled a muscle in my back and was sitting in the car on the side of a dirt road (named "Cooter Johnson Loop" - that's Deliverance you hear in the background) while the other guys were out tromping through the woods with a GPS unit.  An old guy pulls up next team in a very worn out Chevy Luv pickup.  This dude is the hillbilly posterchild - overalls, no shirt, long scraggly beard with tobacco juice stains about halfway down it.  He proceeds to engage me in converstation.

Hillbilly:  What the he** are you doing here?

Me:  I give my standard I'm working for the goverment response.

Hillbilly:  You better not be messing with my kids.

Me:  I'm not getting out of this car.

Hillbilly:  Are you sure you aren't going to mess with my kids?

Me:  Several things are going through my mind - 1.  I s he making an invitation 2.  do I jump out and run before the shotgun comes out 3.  Do I break out laughing because I'm really having this conversation.  I quickly reply that I'm definitely not getting out of the car.

He finally leaves and a few minutes later my crew comes back.  We proceed on down the road and drive by this guy's place.  He is apparently a pig farmer.  I'm not talking big midwest pig operation here.  He actually has some type of drainage system that funnels the "runoff" into a little pond about 30 foot in diameter.  Which his two little ragamuffins are using for their swimming hole as we drive by.  My coworkers and I agreed there are no two kids in this world safer from abduction or assault.  The vilest human alive wouldn't want within 100 foot of those kids.  Of course they were probably immune to every disease in the world since they'd survived that long.
 

cowz

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Oh Chambero!!!   That truly was a double whammy!!   My apologies.   I really was not thinking of you when picking on Texans and bureaucrats.    I'm a bureaucrat too, but I do love self depreciating humor!!!

In reference to the two kids swimming in the cesspool, did you ask the hillbillie if he had his AFO / CAFO designation, had an NPDES permit, and his National Animal ID?

Did you see my earlier post about farm children and the "Hygiene Hypothesis"?    You should have pulled a blood titer on those kids and submitted it to the CDC!
 

chambero

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Texas
I didn't take offense at all, but I'm often amazed at the positions I find myself in and know I must sound like a fool sometimes when I'm having to explain why the government is going to take someone's land or some other often contentious issue I deal with at public meetings and such.    

I was once doing some work for a reservoir and was out walking someone's property (i.e. cow pasture).  Even though I had written permission to be there, the 50 year old woman there at the time didn't know about and didn't want to hear about it.  It was about 110 degrees but too muddy to drive, so this "lady" walks down from the house (probably half a mile) in heavy rubber boots to run us off.  I'm certain that was the farthest she'd walked in several years.  She cussed me every step of the way back.  The more she'd cuss, the hotter she'd get, the higher her blood pressure would get, which would just make her cuss me that much more.  I thought for certain she was going to drop dead before we made back up the hill to the road and then I'd really be in trouble.  We finally made it back and went across the road to property our client had already bought.  The sheriff (who was also a landowner who didn't like the "proposed action" we were involved in) shows up but can't come in because, anticipating trouble, we locked the gate behind us.  I make the appropriate phone calls so someone would know where to bail me out of jail if necessary, and sit in the car with the sheriff watching us just daring us to come out.  Luckly, the heat quickly caused him to lose interest and left which allowed us to make our "escape".
 

shorthorns r us

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i think i went to school with the oldest son of that "coonass".  we were at a hog farm in nw arkansas during winter workout.  anyone who judged in college knows how much chistmas break sucks despite the trip to phoenix.  the deal was to swim across the lagoon for 20 bucks.  some freshman chimed in for another 20 and he started stripping.  faster than you can believe it, he is in his briefs and swimming the lagoon across & back.  fully astonished, we paid the man.  some of u might just know him.  scarry huh!
 

cowz

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With a comment like that, we may have to start a new thread exclusively for livestock judging tales.  (Unless your motto is ....what happens in the van, stays in the van!)
 

DLD

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Apr 15, 2007
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sw Oklahoma
LMAO... I think there was prob'ly more than one in the bunch I judged with in j.c. that would've took that bet. No doubt, most anybody that's been there has plenty of stories.

My grandpa's favorite joke was one about an Arkansas pig farmer, but I never get that one quite right. Maybe I'll see if my brother can refresh my memory...

David
 

shorthorns r us

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we had a set of railroad tracks.  anything that happened across the tracks stayed on the other side.
 
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