Mr. Beefy

Oh, Mr. Beefy. You are the bane of my existence.

Beefy started out here at the farm as a calf,  along with Steak, a pair of holstein bulls that we intended to butcher for ourselves, our neighbor and extended family. Two weeks into our first beef experience, Steak died of causes unknown. That left Beefy alone in our pasture, for the most part. For a while we had the neighbor's horses keeping him and the pasture under control, but then the horses moved on, and Beefy was once again alone in the pasture. For a while it was ok. He was scared of us and kept his distance. But gradually, he began to get less and less skittish, and more and more bullish. It's been a long time since Davey and I felt safe walking down to the creek, or scooping up cow patties for the compost pile.
 And then there was that rainy November day that he decided to bust out of the fence and go for a gallop through the front yard. I pulled into the driveway with my mom and the girls in tow, fresh from an outing, to see Mr. Beefy trompling through my irises. As I parked the van, I watched him start attacking the riding lawn mower, and began to realize that we had a serious problem on our hands. He wouldn't let me in the house. There was no way in heck he was going back into that pasture. He thought it would be a lot more fun to start ramming the van. Cue the frantic phone call to Davey, where once again I proved that I'm not the person you want to depend on in a crisis. I will melt the heck down, ya'll. Every time.
So by the time Davey arrived (can you imagine what his bosses and coworkers must've thought of this excuse? "Gotta go, there's a crazy bull attacking my wife and mother-in-law!"), Beefy had banged up the van, the mower, and about ripped the license plates off our motorcycles. And he wasn't buying the whole, "Look! here's the empty grain bucket that I promise has grain in it!" routine that I'd been trying (from a distance) for the last half-hour. It took Davey another 2 hours of wrangling him with a shovel (and let's be honest, my grandpa's arrival with a bag of grain) to get him back in the fence. I'm telling you, if I could have figured out a way to hoist him up in a tree, I'd have butchered him myself that night.
We know now that cattle are herd animals, and if he had a companion, we might not have any stories to tell about Beefy. But oh, we have the stories. That was just the beginning.