Death of a Legend

There was a story of a research parrot's death on MSN this morning. The parrot had learned to recognize 50 objects, colors, count ... the article said he was like a colleague to the research scientists who worked with him evey day. They were very, very blue over his passing.

The death of a dear 'friend,' reminded me of another sad death that occurred recently on Broken B. I think I've spent a couple of posts talking about how proud (and rightly so) my dad is of the genetics he's put together in our cattle herd. He contributes one decision, in particular, to a good amount of his success: about 10 years ago, he bought a bull that everyone told him not to buy. He was green (young), and all the old farmers said he wouldn't turn out to be anything special. But dad had done his homework on his lineage and pedigree, and thought otherwise. And he was right. That bull has thrown some of the most awesome calves I've ever seen (yeah, I'm gonna say it) in the tri-county area. He has a lot to do with how good our cattle herd is today.

A couple of weeks ago, we had several spectacular thunderstorms here. Rained like crazy, thunder crashing and lightning snaking across the sky. During storms like those, you can expect the lightning to occasionally strike trees, barns, or even animals. And during one of the big storms, the old bull that dad was so proud of was struck by lightning and killed.

It was a dark day at Broken B. He was given a proper burial, and we're even going to construct a grave marker for him. There probably won't ever be another one quite like him, on our farm at least. True, he couldn't count or speak like that parrot, and he didn't get his own story on MSN, but I'm pretty sure that parrot didn't have as many near-perfect progeny as he did. He will be sorely missed.