Bison Smiles

Hello again, and welcome! What a WEEK we have enjoyed at the Lazy W! And there is much more goodness to come. I am feeling very blessed these days and very happily battery-charged in all areas of life. Really loving it.

Today I am answering Mama Kat’s call to share something that made me smile this week. In the midst of so much great stuff, LOTS of big and little things have made me smile, but I’ll just share a string of things that might make you smile too. Ready? It all has to do with our little buff. Our little bachelor bull bison named Chunk-Hi.

 

Chunk always makes me smile. He just does. He is spirited, affectionate, silly, gentle, tough, vulnerable, intelligent, greedy, and innocent. He loves to play peekaboo, allowing me to (just barely) cover each of his enormous blinking eyes with one of my hands. And he loves for Handsome to wrestle his horns. He will dance like a native for loud music or revved up V-8 engines. And he loves cookies, protein pellets, cookies, cookies, and hay, as the photo above shows, and cookies. I mean he LOVES hay. He flips for it, literally. As for the cookies, Chunk-Hi may or may not have bison diabetes. Is that a thing?

This week the weather in Oklahoma has been mercifully warm and easy. The animals all love it, Chunk especially. He wallows in the sand like there’s no tomorrow, and he naps like a champ. So I am frequently mesmerized by him and his pasture mates, watching them snooze or graze or just play around with each other. Below is a snapshot I took today of Chunk with his very best friend in the world, Dusty. Dusty is our girls’ little horse. Also a true-blue sweetie.

Today I was minding my own business, just enjoying the farm, when a friend of ours messaged me a joke you’ve probably seen before, in different incarnations.

Well, of course I laughed. Because these tense conversations have happened here on those sub-zero arctic nights.

“Do you think they’ll be warm enough?”

“Babe. They’re fine. They’re built for this.”

“But they’re so sad.”

But it’s warm now and we are no longer concerned for our pets (or livestock) being so cold they need to cuddle up on our Berber carpet.

This funny message brought back to my memory a story from when Chunk was a wee little guy.

Isn’t he one hundred percent precious??

Those narrow little hooves. Those eyes, always searching or blinking slowly or shying away from the sun. That skinny black ridge on his back, so soon to become a full blown bison hump. That wet, square, leathery nose.

I LOVE HIM SO DANG MUCH!!!

It makes me grit my teeth.

Well, one springtime afternoon right around the time this photo was taken, my youngest daughter and I were home alone. I had the doors and windows open as is customary on gorgeous, breezy days in Oklahoma. And several of the large animals were loose, just nibbling the verdant lawn and otherwise pretending to be people. Which is to say, not doing anything I told them to do. Chunk was generally included in the “large animal” category despite his diminutive stature.

I do not remember what triggered it, but all of a sudden Jess and I both realized that Chunk had stepped through the open front door, trip-trapped his way across the roughly tiled entryway, and was coming towards us as we worked on her homework and probably ate cookies.

Okay, now listen.

We were in exactly zero danger. Do you see this little guy? Admittedly, if this happened today with Chunk’s one million pounds of solid muscle and eight foot long pointed horns, I would be telling you a completely different story. But I want you to imagine his adorable little baby face awash in terror because his slick, pointed hooves could find no purchase on the shiny wood floors.

Okay I am pretending right now that my wood floors were shiny. But please just go with it.

And I am his mama! Since day two of his tender little life we have bottle fed him, and I have spent practically every day of his life feeding and playing with him. He trusts me!

So he stared at me and made these panicked  little mewing, bleating, grunting sounds, convinced I could somehow help him, but the harder he tried to stand upright the more precarious his situation became. Think… ice skating for the first time. In public. On a buttered rink.

And I couldn’t stop laughing. It’s a disease, I realize, this nervous laughter when things are going horribly wrong. Jess and I surrounded Chunk and did our best to guide him in a semi circle back toward the front door, where hopefully the rough tile would be a small help. He couldn’t calm down enough to be lifted, though he was still small enough, so air hugs had to do.

We successfully corralled him with air hugs out through the open front door and he let us cuddle and pet for a few minutes, both of us still laughing. Poor little guy.

At this point in the story, two of Handsome’s colleagues and also our friends, Bob and Trent, pulled a rental car up in the driveway. I think there was a business trip that day?  Anyway, Jess and I immediately exploded into full on story telling mode, simultaneously digesting what had just transpired.The men just stared at us, laughing awkwardly. Chunk was standing calmly on the sidewalk by then, so I am not sure either Bob or Trent believed us. For a while it bothered me that we had removed Chunk from the house so quickly, because it seemed like the sort of incident that requires photo documentation. But I was also really glad it happened when Jess was home so she and I could share that silly memory.

So there you have it. A smile while watching my now five year old bull eat his breakfast. Then a smile at a joke because I have indeed considered bringing the animals inside during a cold snap. And still more smiles to remember that time Chunk accidentally slipped into our living room. So many smiles today!

What has made you smile this week?

“You can lead a buffalo anywhere he wants to go.”

Slightly famous buffalo quote

XOXOXO