Okay, let’s add another word for being mean or pissed off which can make you mean. Specifically, a pissed off mean cow. But a word that can be applied to mean pissed off people in general.
The word is “snuffy”. So add that to “gnarly”, “owly” and “high headed”. Well, “high headed” is a word for wild, Cowboy Clay reminded me. “Different”.
So Cowboy Clay called this morning and I asked how the cold calf was. Two nights ago a calf was born in below zero weather out in 2 feet of snow. He decided he better get him in which means putting him in the ranch house’s mudroom. He loaded him up in the pickup, but then he almost got stuck in the deep snow. Somehow he made it and got the calf in to the warmth.
So two days later I wondered how the calf was doing.
“Oh, I put him back out there, but the darn cow wouldn’t take him. Wouldn’t recognize him as her own. So I went back a little later and put some of that powder on him.”
(That powder has the hilarious but appropriate name of “O NO MO”. Translated is Orphan No More. It takes the human scent off and hopefully will get the cow to take the calf aka nurse the calf.)
“Not much luck when I checked and then the darndest thing happened. This other cow came up to the calf and started to butt him all around. I had to jump in there and try to get her to go back to her own calf. She finally went away. And then the next time I checked his mother had claimed him. But then I found another new calf and I was doctoring him when that same mean cow got a little snuffy again. She tried to butt me and the calf, but I got away from her and got her to go back to her own calf.”
I asked if he had marked her tag number down and he said he did. That means she might be on the list to “send her down the road” next fall when her calf is weaned. Sending her “down the road” means going to the meat packer, if you haven’t figured that out.
In my line of work in Hollywood, you get the occasional mean person. You try and fend off the “gnarly”, “owly” or “snuffy” ones. It’s best to try humor with these snorty owly snuffy types. It can work to be a little playful or a little curious about why the bad mood. Doesn’t work to crack jokes with an angry 1200 pound mother on a mission. She goes on the list. If humor doesn’t work with the human snuffy type, you can put them on a list. But the consequences of that list aren’t so dire as ending up in the “Meats and Deli” section at the grocery store.