cattleman

there are people that own cattle; then there are cattlemen. grampa was a cattleman. he learned about cattle and farming from his grandfather john orr as a kid in co. down. for me growing up on the farm i just took this for granted. as a young man i new alot about cows having followed grampa around for 20 years or so; but the lure of the road called me and i went trucking ; by the time i was 40 i wouldn't have known an udder from a brisket! not so with grampa; he left ireland at 17 for canada, worked in the logging camps, the mines, homesteaded in northern alberta (no cows)...then 1940-45 getting shot at in europe. grampa was 40 when he was dicharged from the army...glad to be alive no doubt; and with grama , auntie betty and aunty mona to come home to he was indeed a lucky man! in '43 grama had bought a farm near cloverdale for grampa when he came home. knowing the causualty rates of canadian soldiers in italy in '43, buying the farm must have taken a great deal of faith....grama rented the farm to chow wai (i have vague, pleasant memories of him) until grampa returned home. many years later grampa told me; "me nerves were shot when i came home but mama had me this nice farm and there was work to do." it may have saved him....who knows...after all those years and adventures grampa was a dairy farmer...skip to my memories 60s-80s....we wern't big farmers, we weren't rich farmers; we were good farmers...grampas' family, cows, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, dogs, cats,friends and nieghbors were always content, well fed and well cared for. in our area grampa was the go to guy if you had a sick or ailing cow. i remember many many phone calls at all hours where grampa would be called by a nieghbor to help with a cow in distress....ussually i got to go with him. most often this was for difficult births; grampa was nearly always successfull at saving both cow and calf. how he could be away from farming for so long and then do so well at it tells me that it was a gift he had. one of our new nieghbors had bought a farm near us but he and his family had not yet moved in ; he had cattle on the place and had a young south asian family there looking after them. these folks were recent imigrants and spoke almost no english; the lady would phone and say" dad...girl sick" or "dad...boy sick"; grampa and i would go down and doctor the sick cow or steer. needless to say grampa never took money for helping a nieghbor...the sense of community and the friendship we new there was worth far more...