The Bull

(A tale from my cheesemaking days)

There once was a bull named Willem Adriaan van der Stel. A massive ton or so of muscle, he lived in a nice, wood-fence enclosed paddock next to the administrative building of a wine/dairy farm. Unfortunately he lived alone.

Every day he would watch the cows come by to be milked and return back to their paddocks. On calf-moving days he would placidly examine the antics of 10 people trying to prevent 200 calves from exiting the road in all directions, or attempting to go back to their nice warm pens.

On rainy days he stood like a block of granite, chewing his cud as the water poured off him. On sunny days he lay in the meager shade of the lone tree and watched the comings and goings of the farm around him.

His paddock bordered the admin parking area, and cars parked right up close to his wooden fence. He discovered that if he leaned out far enough, he could lick some delicious stuff from their radiators while their occupants were inside conducting their business.

One day the farm driver was due to take a female worker to the doctor, but first stopped off to collect the post at the admin building. The lady sat and waited in the bakkie (pick-up truck / ute). Willem Adriaan indulged in his usual delight of attempting to lick the radiator. Unfortunately the driver had parked a little way back, and Willem Adriaan had quite a stretch to reach the car. He leaned, and he leaned, and his massive weight pushed over the fence! He was free!

A bit confused, he ambled up to the bakkie and started to nudge it, setting it a-wobble. So much so that it was in danger of overturning. The lady inside started to scream, but after a few minutes fortunately remembered the two-way radio in the bakkie, with a direct connection to the farm office. She got on the radio and cried for help, a cry heard throughout the building, as the bakkie continued to be rocked.

The driver ran out, closely followed by a couple of secretaries and the general manager. "Oh good" thought Willem Adriaan. "Company!" He ran to greet them.

The driver dived over the wall, the secretaries ran back inside, and the general manager was left cowering behind the gate. Someone called the dairy manager, who rushed over. But Willem Adriaan came to greet him too, and he quickly retreated.

Eventually one man arrived who knew this bull very well. He often talked to him over the fence, or stood with him in silence, surveying the view.

He walked right up to Willem Adriaan, hit him on the nose with his hand, called him a "naughty son of a ...", grabbed him by his gigantic brass nose-ring and calmly led him away to a secure place.

He (the bull, not the man) was provided with a cow for company and never tried to escape again in all his days.

(Shortly later, Willem Adriaan was loaded on the back of a rather large truck and sold for an unbelieveable amount of cash, by the kilo, to feed many hungry mouths.)