Chapter 120: The Great Cow Returns

  "Looks like the manpower at the ranch is sufficient for now. If we're short-handed next year, we can buy a few single-person helicopters to make rounding up the cows more convenient."

  Lawrence shook his head and said, "Helicopters herding cattle is indeed labor-saving, but the quality of the meat will be much worse. Because helicopters herd too quickly, the cows run too fast, making their muscles more developed. Now, except for leisure ranches that use helicopters, most are using traditional manual grazing methods. I suggest not to use helicopters, although it saves on cowboy wages, the quality of beef is also reduced a lot, and overall, the ranch will still lose out."

  Uh! Living in peace and quiet, I secretly thought that this time there's no excuse to play with the helicopter, what a pity.

  At this time, Old Thomas looked at Ju An with a regretful face and smiled to continue: "Actually, the ranch is preparing for two helicopters next year, it will be more convenient when I and Lawrence inspect the ranch, no need to ride horses on long roads. Just checking the fence around the ranch is also convenient, after all, more than 50,000 acres of land, relying solely on driving would take a lot of time."

  Upon hearing this, he suddenly became happy again: "Then next spring I'll go buy two, and by then I can also bask in the glory."

  Lawrence smiled and said, "Then let's get two. It's a matter of tens of thousands of dollars. Just now I heard Thomas say that there was a Pièrre de Flore in the ranch, so I went to take a look, it's really good cattle. My suggestion is to put down our work at hand, and we three go find them together, fearing that if time goes on, problems will arise."

  Living in comfort, how did it come back to the big cow's head? It seems that this is a good cow, and its attraction to the two old cowboys is really great. Now the plan needs to be implemented quickly. Looking at the hopeful eyes of the two people, Ju An nodded and said: "Okay! We'll set off tomorrow afternoon."

  Having received their answer, Thomas and Laurence took up their hats and left the house.

  After Ju An and the others left, they entered the space, fed the birds, carefully counted a group of cows, including the newly born calves. The entire herd had more than sixty heads, big and small. After careful observation, it was found that the mother cows accounted for nearly half, with almost forty heads, while the male cows were in the minority, with more than twenty heads.

  Having observed the situation in front of and behind the residence, he then exited the space, thinking that tomorrow morning would be a good time to get rid of these guys, so as to avoid being urged by the two old men.

  At night, Ju An sneaked out and found the big cow hiding in the horse stable. The cow was lying in front of a pile of hay, eating grass face to face with the hay. The hay in front of it was noticeably higher than the rest, probably placed there by Nancy on purpose. When Ju An approached, some horses looked at her with wide eyes and gently patted their foreheads. As she got closer to the big cow, she pulled it into space.

  When Ju An came out of the space, he saw that all the horses in the stable were staring at him with big eyes. Ju An patted his hands and said with satisfaction: "Although you have the IQ of a two or three-year-old child, unfortunately, you can't speak, so you can't expose me." Then he opened the door of the stable and looked outside, and under the gaze of a group of horse heads, he slipped away from the stable.

  In the morning, An was still lying in bed, half asleep, when he heard a knock at the door. Then came Old Thomas's voice: "An! An! Get up quickly, the cow is gone."

  Opening his eyes in a comfortable position, he only wore a large underpants and opened the door with his pajamas open, and saw Old Thomas holding a cowboy hat standing at the door.

  As soon as the door was opened, Old Thomas said: "The cow you brought back yesterday is gone, I looked around the pasture and didn't find it. Nancy said she last saw it in the stable and even added some extra fodder."

  Looking at the anxious old Thomas, Ju An felt a little apologetic and said: "You guys handle the cattle first, I'll pack up too. Let's search around, if we can't find it, we'll head into the mountains at noon to look for it."

  Thomas nodded and left the room, his footsteps echoing on the floorboards as he hastily closed the door behind him. He quickly tidied himself up and entered a space where he fed some meat to his little bird, then left the space and brought out two small mountain lions. He chased Teddy out of the house and had Wu Song feed the mountain lions.

  Then he went out of the house, to the stable to prepare the saddle for the bean grass, and rushed towards the foot of the mountain. When he arrived at the edge of his own pasture, he crossed a piece of mountain forest, got off the horse, and let all the cows in the space go out. He patted the head of the big cow and said, "Be good, take the cattle back to the pasture." Then he rode on the back of the bean grass horse, walked a few steps towards the pasture, turned his head to look at the big cow, the big cow raised its head, mooed, and slowly followed up. The big cow moved, and the herd also started moving forward.

  As soon as he felt at ease, he galloped towards the ranch on horseback. When he arrived at the ranch, Thomas and Lawrence had already gathered over ten cowboys, all of whom were mounted on horses. The two old men were assigning tasks, seemingly preparing to disperse and search. Seeing this scene, Jū ān's sense of guilt intensified a bit. He thought to himself that in the future, he should avoid getting into such situations, after all, both old men were over fifty years old, and it was not good for them to be disturbed like this. Jū ān also felt some guilt, as he couldn't reveal the secret about Zhūzi.

  As he watched the riders approach, Lawrence said: "Thomas came running to me early and told me that the cattle were gone. After I rounded up my side, I brought a few people over." Listening to Lawrence's words, Guan also noticed that there were several Chilean cowboys among them.

  As Thomas finished assigning tasks, about a dozen cowboys dispersed on horseback, with Guren following Lawrence and Thomas in a group of three to search.

  As Ju An led the two old men in a winding path towards where he had let out the big cow, when they arrived at the place where Ju An had let out the cow, the big cow was nowhere to be seen. Ju An started to get a little worried, hadn't he gone and lost it? This guy would really become a laughing stock then.

  Thomas took a look and exclaimed excitedly: "An! Lawrence, come take a look. There's some cow dung here, and hoof prints too. Good fellow, there aren't many, I reckon several dozen heads."

  Lawrence also urged the horse forward, then got off the horse, used a small branch to sweep away the cow dung, and said with joy: "More than an hour ago, the cattle were left nearby, not far from here. If you look around, you will find out which direction they went." As soon as he finished speaking, the two old men began to search around, and soon discovered the trail of the cows. The three of them got back on their horses and followed the traces, slowly heading in the direction of the pasture. When the three of them entered the pasture, they found the more than 60 cows in a grove of trees. The big cow was leisurely eating the tender leaves of a small tree, and the cattle had also protected the calves in the middle, resting and drinking in the grove. Some cows even lay down.

  Thomas and Lawrence immediately excitedly picked up the walkie-talkies to call over the rest of the cowboys, then dismounted their horses to carefully inspect the herd. Looking at the excitement of the two old men, Ju An said to them: "After driving the cattle back, these cows will be called Thomas and Lawrence Cattle, abbreviated as TL Grey Cows."

  Thomas and Lawrence, the two old men's faces had more smiles on them. After checking for a while, the rest of the cowboys also arrived, everyone got off their horses and joined in to check, but An was not interested in joining the crowd, it was clear that there would be no other ranch marks, so why bother wasting his energy.

  They waited for a group of people to check, but didn't find any marks, and excitedly drove the cattle back. Who knew that Big Cow seemed unwilling to be with the herd, and after walking for a while, it went back to the side of the bean grass again. Old Thomas saw this scene and laughed, saying: "It seems like this guy thinks he's a horse! This time we were able to find the cattle so easily, thanks to him! I thought they had run away, but fortunately, you brought them back. Ah, I have to say, you're really lucky!"

  "Gu An rubbed his head and said, 'This has nothing to do with luck, good character makes everything possible.' Seeing Old Thomas' puzzled expression, he explained what is meant by 'good character'."

  Lawrence laughed and said, "You're still unlucky? Bought a ranch, the previous owner didn't take care of it, who knows by chance grew special pasture, went into the mountains to hunt, who knew didn't catch anything, but found a good batch of cows, forgot now they are called TL gray cattle, we two also got some credit, now I just hope it's a unique breed, at that time Thomas and I will be famous, as long as the book mentions this kind of cow, our names will be mentioned."

  After driving a group of cows back to the pasture, Lawrence took the Chilean cowboys back to their place. Thomas called over Wayne and Big Fella, separated the gray cattle, left four or five strongest bulls in this herd, drove all other adult bulls into the large herd, let Wayne take care of this herd, and Big Fella replaced Wayne's position to manage the large herd.

  "Living in peace and quiet, he asked from the side: 'Why drive away the remaining few head of cattle, wouldn't it be better to let them stay together?'"

  Thomas explained, "Those few robust bulls are enough to stay for breeding, and the others that are slightly smaller or have some minor health issues will be left in the larger group as stud bulls. Who knows, they might even improve the overall weight of the existing herd. Even if these small bulls grow up to be somewhat inferior, they'll still need to be culled to ensure the genetic quality of this herd. It's a process of selection that goes on for generations, and it's similar to horse breeding - survival of the fittest. Inferior male horses are usually castrated, same principle."

  Ju An thought for a moment and also felt that Thomas was somewhat reasonable, so she no longer intervened in Thomas's allocation plan.