The summer is slowly, but perceptively, fading and one can detect a hint of freshness in the air. Of course, that depends upon where you're standing and which way the wind is blowing. Some people have a fit if the garbage truck is late, or if someone forgets to take out the trash from the garage for a couple of days. This dilemma is quickly put into perspective when facing the dead carcass of a very large bull and trying to figure out how to dispose of it.
I have a friend who, years ago in another State and time in our lives, had to get rid of a dead cow (you know who you are). He lived in a duplex in the city, but kept cows on his farm. He proceeded to tell Debbie and me the whole involved, gruesome story about the dead cow, how the rendering plant was closed over the Holiday weekend and he just didn't know what to do. Somehow the punch line never surfaced, so we were forced to ask, "So what did you do with the cow?" He sheepishly pointed out the front window of his house and there, under a tarp in the bed of his pick-up truck parked at the curb, was the innocent-looking mound. Assuming no one stole the carcass over the weekend, he planned to cart it to a suitable disposal site the following week. In this case the tale was tempered by the fact that this event occurred in the Winter. Not so with this current story.
It turns out that a big bull died at a small local dairy. Most folks around here have front-end loaders, bulldozers and such, so this doesn’t usually present an insurmountable disposal problem. In this case the farmer decided to "solve two things at once". Since he had a very large amount of brush to burn, he figured that he might just build a neat funeral pyre and let the fire do its work. This clearly can be filed under the category, "Hey, y'all; watch this".
Kerosene or diesel are usually the fuels of choice for such a venture, but in this case, the gasoline can just happened to be handy. The farmer very expediently built the brush pile, dragged the carcass on top with his tractor and proceeded to thoroughly soak the brush and bull with gasoline. He then ran a neat little trail of liquid out about 10 yards or so from the pile. Pausing for a brief moment of silence, he lit the gas. He watched as the bull catapulted high into the air over the fence and into the neighbor's woods as he was simultaneously thrown to the ground (minus his arm and facial hair).
Adding considerable insult to injury, he walked in the house in his singed condition and only earned raucous laughter from his spouse. He then made the mistake of trying to garner sympathy at the corner store within earshot of a number of his neighbors including a now infamous raconteur who spreads these stories around the world via e-mail. At least in this case, you know that the story ended with "no bull".
Watch where you step in the woods.
DE 9/12/2004