ARM WRESTLING AT GEAUGA PARK

3-13-2012- the day of the great arm wrestling tournament

       

        it was just the other day in the doctors office the doctor had just came into the examining room and asked me if i wanted to arm wrestle. he is new to me but not to the world as he does look like he had been around a little. definitely had the edges wore off and was greatly undersized compared to me who was the only other person in the room. to my further amazement he tells me he is going to win. im beginning to think do i really want a doctor who is just plan down right stupid to try me like that , but figured it all to be a hoax and laughed at his remarks in a positive you really don't want to go there doc look. 

      i proceeded to tell him that i had arm wrestled professionally at seaworld at geauga lake in aurora , ohio in about 1977. he started asking me about how to do it and what the technique was all about. i mentioned to him , it was all about the jump after you start. you need to anticipate the start to get the jump on the other guy hopefully sending him into a downward spiral. and that it is possible to comeback and win with sheer strength but you need to try and avoid getting down at all. 

      the first guy i was up against was huge , since i was over 220 lbs, i was considered heavyweight. xxl . is the term but it also put me in there with the really huge guys weighing 350 400 pounds. a chunka chunk. twice the arms of myself and i am a fairly large person and at the time was working in a feed mill slinging sacks of grain for a living. would be nothing to tote around 20 tons of feed per day . stack it and load on customer trucks . also in the bars around my hometown i had never been beaten at arm wrestling , winning some drinking money at the bars with my arm. i felt as if i stood a chance. this first guy wiped up the floor with me. it was over so fast i just stood there and shook my head. 

        the second guy got up and since it was double elimination i had to lose twice. i wasn't about to and this time i had a better idea what to do. and since this wasn't his first competition he knew better to as he lost once before also. he was a formidable opponent . as after we started it see sawed back and forth , as both of us had determination to win. he had just about pinned me and i got my second wind and started bringing it back to the crowds approval . this spurred me on.  as well as the news photographer was getting his tv camera out and was taking closeups of the action getting in my face as i strained to take him over the top. there was no down hill slide either as he was giving up ever so reluctantly . but the crowd cheered me on and somewhere i dug up enough energy to put him away. and the crowd cheered at his demise. life was good.

         well the producer of the event said it was going to be a couple of hours till i wrestled again having won. so if i wanted to i could check out things on the grounds. well i never saw a killer whale , so i went and watched shamu as he did his stunts and just wondered all over sea world being amazed at every corner by aquariums , and happenings. i was in need of some relaxation as everything including going back wrestling were starting to overwhelm me. i decided to lean up against a fence much like in the first picture. it was in the shade and i never quite looked at what was on the other side of the fence. i didn't till it sent its appendage out seeking me and wrapped itself around my foot and tugged. i looked down and there was this grey thing wrapped around my foot . i about lost it high stepping out of there and looking back to see what it was as it disappeared under  the fence. thinking it was some kind of snake or something. 

        when i looked back over the fence , i could see clearly who the aggressor was . it was a baby elephant. it was as cute as it could be . would have loved to take it home but im sure it wouldn't fit in vw seat , and my girlfriend was already jealous of the attention i was spending on this gentle giant. i would scratch his head and he showered his attention back to me. soon some guy came around the corner and says in rough tone. remember he is a wild animal. and disappears as quickly as he appeared. after awhile the elephant wandered off as my mind did too, wondering what his purpose was there. 

       well it didn't take to much wondering as i went on to the next show and was sitting there and heard an announcement for bertha the skiing elephant. and sure enough but who would appear on a set of water pontoons to look like skis but bertha the baby elephant as she whizzed by me at my vantage point along  side the lake. she looked scared and apprehensive about whole water skiing thing as she did circles and such. it only lasted about 10 minutes but was glad to see her make it back to shore . i could only imagine how unbelievably horrible it would be for a baby elephant to slip off the skis in front of a crowd. imagine it would scare her being in the water. but then again i hear elephants can swim , and aren't afraid of water unless a crocodile is there. 

        t

630e6h0+\is all served to take my mind off the next match as again i was up against the first guy . the same one who had beat me so pitifully the first time. what a draw. oh well eventually if i was going to win would have to beat him or the guy that beats him also, so might as well get with it. 

       slap a diaper  on this guy and he would remind you of one of those sumo wrestlers from japan. this time around he was huffing and puffing , in an apparent attempt to psyche me out . it worked as i stood there wondering if he was going to blow up when the match started.  again it was over before i knew it. well so ended my professional career as a arm wrestler.

         and this doctor is going to beat me he says. i kinda think he is prescribing himself way to much testosterone, and it is beginning to get him in trouble. don't know as to who is treating who here sometimes. but would hope that it was just an attempt at humor to offset the seriousness of the situation. then again, maybe the old fart is feeling his oats.  

      

Rehash of, old blog post i thought entertaining.

 

More from Oxbow Farms

                     

        Don’t think I added the links to my old stories from Oxbow Farms as I said I would in my last blog before the update. It took me awhile to find the right pic and to size it right for the blog and I completely forgot so will include them now:life moves on: split pelvis operation- life moves on: caeserian section- a click on either of these will easily give you some entertaining looks, and information into what cattle breeding and work on Oxbow Farms was all about. i didnt re-edit the old blogs as they were early blogs , and it shows some level of progress or retardation i might have gained and lost since then. 

     Anyhow today I plan on taking you with me as I again take a trip down memory lane and up to the bull barn as we called it back then. Inside was a huge bull  pen made out of 2 inch steel pipe welded at one and half foot intervals or close enough so a full size bull couldn’t stick his head through and it was probably 40 by 40 feet inside and the same outside , yet had a door in between we could close in bad weather. The sides of the pen went from the ground or a foot above the ground every one and half feet to the ceiling. Making the walls to where you could see the bull and interact with him but not so he could get to you.

      We were never supposed to go in the pen unless someone else was there to watch and do whatever if something went wrong, like he used you for a play toy or something. He weighed 2400 lbs. find of like one of those jacked up four wheel drives with mudder tires, only on four legs. He stood over 6 feet tall and I had to look up to see over his shoulders. He was a mammoth bull with a two and half foot wide head and I was entrusted to feed him.

     He was a big baby and we soon it came to the point that I actually thought he was glad to see me when I came to feed him. Some people do as they are told, and I myself look at an animal and feed an animal the best I can when feeding them, the same as I would do for myself and better. They wanted some more weight on him and so they wanted me alone to feed him as I could do a better job understanding quality of hay and feedstuffs needed. I would throw his hay into the chain rack in the corner of his pen from outside and the same with his grain. I fed daily for quite a time, while I worked there on an internship basis, and knew I would miss feeding him. He loved to have his head scratched, you had to be careful though as one bump of his head against the steel bars of the pen would break your arm if you allowed it to be pinched in there. He was so powerful a bull.

     His main purpose was to be used for semen collection and it was kind of sad to hear how they went about doing this. I could only imagine after never really experiencing, but only hearing tales of how it was accomplished. They would take a bull much like this identified by his progeny and statistics to be the ideal of what the purebred industry is looking for when selecting a bull. Mainly high birth weights, calves that lived at birth and how many made it to weaning, and then calving ease. Higher birth weights translate into more money per unit of weight. Steaks are bigger etc., this all equals more retail beef for sale.  If the calf weight is large at birth and if they, they being the mother cow may have more troubles at birth with complications involving caesarian and split pelvis operations to remove the calves resulting higher birth losses, then this isn’t good. You definitely want a big calf but easy to calve. Hard to find this right ratio, as calves are a result of two parents. Heredity and statistics plays an important part in selection of animals in any beef production farm, or dairy and pork as well. The same principles are applied across the board when it comes to livestock selection and genetics. It all depends on what you are looking for and that will be the ideal that most farmers shoot for. This bull also had twinning aspect to him. Too produce two calves off the same mother in beef production is like getting an animal for free and lower calf weights. This would be easier on cows calving, kind of a real win-win situation in selection characteristics, but twinning is not always heritable or so they say. But regardless, I delivered three sets of twin calves while I was there and he was a father to six in his progeny, and it was a statistic although not always used for selection did influence the top breeding bulls of his purebred status as a Simmental bull sire.  

    This was his niche or corner in the market of semen production. They wanted to store as much as they could in liquid nitrogen for future use. This is the way you pay for your bull. As a bull in artificial semen sire production is apt to breed thousands of cattle from the same bull, yet only about 1000 in his whole lifetime if left to natural processes. He was hardly used to breed any cattle naturally.  Instead they would lead a heifer or cow in heat up in front of a jumping stall as they name it and which I have seen. It is carpeted and is like a huge saw horse and the bull and the cow would be separated but close enough for him to smell her heat. I guess that would be the equivalent of pheromones causing excitability and an erection in the bull. Well the reason a bull has a nose ring is to control him while he is in this aroused state, as two rope leads with a pole attached to this ring with one pole being held by one guy and another pole being held by the other would control this bull by holding his head back and if a bull would turn his head any way they didn’t want him to, they would yank on the rope and pull on his ring forcing the bull to snort but yield his turn.

       Now we need to pause and reflect on why today’s teenagers want to wear a nose ring or rings as I have seen on some pretty girls who need nothing, but insist on portraying themselves in nose rings. Forget the health issue of keeping them clean but look at the true meaning of nose rings and see it as a form of submission to  slave oneself to the tireless effort of being cool. As well our generation knows, it is an elusive trip only rewarded after years of endearment to be the one, that you finally realize you don’t have to conform to be cool. It is all a state of mind based on values of society ever changing. Oh well they will find out soon enough.

       As I digress and reflect on society , and it’s correlation to fads without knowing the meaning or true intent, these handlers hold the bull and actually keep him on this huge sawhorse, while another artificial inseminator technician grabs ahold of the bulls now throbbing member unsheathed in his plastic gloved hands and shoves the about 3 foot long and up to an inch and half wide member  into an artificial vagina that is warmed and lubed to a cows temperature, usually made out of a rubber tire inner tube  that is folded together and  has a semen collection sack which is basically a clear plastic baggy to collect his semen taped to the bottom with duct tape, while the bull who is jerking and contorting on the stand finally deposits his healthy load. Now I need to insert my joke for the day.

      What is long and round and has seamen inside? A submarine of course. What did you think? Anyhow after a long day of semen collection an handling several bulls the artificial inseminator comes home to his wife and she asks.

     “How was your day dear?”

       And he looks at her and says. “Long and hard dear.”

      She says. “Oh well , make sure you wash up for dinner dear, and by the way we are having your favorite , mountain oyster creamed stew, it will be oh so-oooo good!

     That was the part of artificial insemination that kept me from getting a certification to be an artificial inseminator technician and part of the requirement of my field of specialty at ATI and eventually forced me to change or split my majors into crop production. Call me a homophobe or whatever but there was no way I was grabbing a bulls whatever, for any amount of money, let alone portioning and freezing his semen afterward.

      It seemed a shame that here was this great bull and at times I just wanted to turn him loose in one the pens of cattle and just watch him go to town on the old girls. But then again even with his prowess could he ever measure up to the arms of an artificial inseminator as he does his thing. Even this bull may be let down. Being a herdsman sometimes isn’t always a good thing and is the reason I think natural is best. You need more bulls but that is ok as it seems to work best and cows and they seem to enjoy themselves more.

     I would sometimes have to retrieve this big boy’s feed bowls from inside the pen. Usually as I have said before for safety reasons, we do this only when someone else was around. I called for other help and no one was going to be available till I left work, and then the next guy who replaced me would have to do it alone. I couldn’t let someone else do my job when we were shorthanded, and knew someone would be around soon, but still I couldn’t tell when that was.   So I went into the pen through the steel gate, always keeping my eye on the bull. I had to go all the way over to the other side of the pen. The bull would turn and face me but never offered to advance toward me. I had trouble reattaching the feed buckets with the new clips we had, as he had torn a ring out of the feed bucket. This kind of took my attention away from the bull for a second and I turned my back away from him and looked at what I was doing. This very act went against all I was ever told about bulls and that was never turn your back on them. Just that quick I felt something underneath my butt as I started going up into the air grabbing on to the pipes as I hand over hand was trying to hang on, all the way up to the ceiling and I was ducking my head as I was over five foot high off the ground, with my legs a dangling, sitting on this bulls head. I hooked my feet into the pipes on the wall of the pen and climbed higher stooping as I did trying to get away from this bull and I was in a corner while doing this making it easier to thankfully escape his massive head-butt he had just gave me.

     I was relieved I was safe but still not so much, as I was still in the pen, and what is hard for the bull to escape through, was also holding me in, so I had to do something quick and since I had no club to turn him away, and he was just standing there with his head in the air shaking it playfully. Kinda like common Big Boy it’s time to play. I did the only thing I could do, I planted a size 13 between his eyes as hard as I could I shoved my foot in his face and thumped him real hard, with kind of a hollow thud to it, and he shook his head and snorted but turned away and sulked outside like I had hurt his feelings. I felt almost sorry for him for about a second and then I was safely back out the door and gone. Only taking enough time to catch my breath and be thankful I wasn’t lying in a pile of BS stacked in the corner. Wadded up like a shitty ragdoll with some blood to accent it. A fitting tragic end to my early writing career it would be as no one knew I was in there and it could have been hours before they found me.

    I never reentered the pen but instead made some long poles with hooks on one end to either drag the feed buckets to the side of the pen or hook them with extra loop I installed on the buckets to prevent ever having to enter the pen again for that reason. So many times when you are alone, and in the process of farming you encounter moments like this when you could just as easily be dead, that you truly appreciate what some of these old farmers go through daily by themselves. Whether it is turning on a tractor PTO or power take off to doing whatever, or it could be something as simple as walking in a pasture and tripping and hurting your head on a rock to realize how dangerous this job can be. There are no magic bullets or safety equipment, but instead intuition and experience plays a role in their being able to make it another day.

       Really don’t know what message I may have left with you in retelling this story or anything it contains in this blog but sure covered a few areas that should make you appreciate a few things. Maybe you to would be glad as I am that farming and especially livestock farming may not be a good career choice for those with issues in controlled breeding such as me. It takes a special type of person to do that work and I know it isn’t me. My hats off to the Artificial Inseminator, and I would shake your hand but? 

Dino the Dinosaur

The Cat and the Dinosaur

       To tell this story I will need to give you some background as to where and what I do.This would come in the form as an artist, writer, retired , grumpy , 69 year old farmer still wannabe. I am a lover of nature, and have spent a lot of time in it. Retiring about 3 years ago , I set some roots down in a year round campground. at first i thought I would spend my winters in the southwest, but after 2 winters I longed for our area around here.  I also owned a cat and bought a perman-

 

Ms. Prissy

ent house trailer set up on a lot with  water, sewer and electic in a Home Owners  Assoc. or a HOA as i will refer to it from now on. 

    My days are filled with a fair amount of sitting as my back is grdually getting worse to what end i dont know. I used to be fairly active when younger, I was a chainsaw sculptor, and artist, heavy equipment opeator, beyond working a full day I would come home and work on the farm and feed my animals. As I had ducks, chickens dogs and cats that was the old days. I am a bit more relaxed nowadays. I try to move more often but I have to watch more carefully. Hav

ing fallen a few times here lately under stupid circumstances I am just more careful about what I do.

My current group of cats

Old pics of strays

Havent seen her for awhile but thought she was neat.  

    Here lately  motivation to do something is great but just getting up and doing it,or as in this case sitting down and doing it. Anyhow tonite i would like to relate to you a story about my Dino the Dinosaur.

     Dino came to me by way of a chore I was doing. Unusual in the sense that it actually involved the animal I was feeding. I have been feeding the stray cats at pikes peak campground partiallly due to untimely death of lela, the caretaker here that died in a an automobile accident a year ago. since then noone was feding he cats and it ws nothing to see them scampering out of the dumpsters slimy and wet from who knows what trying to scap up enough to eat. Last winter on my birthday in Dec. on a gloomy day they call your birthday. the day was grey and damp, snowy mess of a day and returning home i had to pass the dumpsters on the way in. 

     On top of one the dumpsters was this black, with brown streaks and a wad of long hair ball on its right leg stray cat. It digusted me that someone couldnt take the initiative to at least see them fed. So as i watched her scurry off I decided to go and get them a cxouple of bowls of catfood and feed them as a birthday gift to myself. A chore is what I needed to bring me out of my funk. To do something for someone else, as in this case feed the strays. It doesnt help the problem as there ar as many as always show up and a few new kittens. All the cats are black except that one I initially saw on top of the dumpster with the ice ball. When i say all, there is 7 black cats and 4 kittens of those 2 are juist weeks old and cute as hell. The other 2 black kittens are older and lovable , and if I am real lucky I can pet the choclate black cat. The kitttens all come out to greet the truck and know its sound. They  run around the dumpsters in excitement and this one little one has me stomping around like I'm playing cow pasture polka.

      I have turned  what I thought was, and is a good deed I do into a daily chore with unknown longterm responsibilities that are better dealt with by our community. After all they were here before I was 3 years ago and longer as it has been a long standing problem our comunity tends to ignore as most places do. 

       My plans so far and as of my birthday was to feed them and work out the details later. This is what I did every day since I realized the only way anyone was going to do anything about the cats is that I needed to do it now. So I did and reluctantly yet steadfastly I have managed to every day to feed at the same time of 6:00 pm. I have found over my years of feeding animals is that they have an internal clock and they know that they need to be there to eat at the same time every day to get to eat.

        Well an unusual and very unigue event happened to me the other day. Normally before I put down their full dishes I pick up their old ones. Anyhow in one of these dishes was this little plastic toy that looked like Dino the Dinosaur. I can only assume that one of those cats had found it and put it in the dish for me. I picked it up because it was so unusual that it was there. That there was no way it was humans that did it. There was plenty of places for it to lay even if accidentally thrown there. Moms surely wouldnt let their kids go in where I feed the cats behind the dumpsters. It had to be one of the cats that  brought it intentionally or accidentally there as a reward for me. Dont know if its actually a reward or not, but i liked it right off the bat and recognized Dino as a mascot for Sinclair Oil Co. that was around in the early 60's that had toy gas trucks and even a board game which is where i believe this Dino came from and can be dated from around 1969. or 55 years old. Its only one piece of what i thought would be a multi piece set. Also this would be in the time frame of the park where I live when it was built. The game would go for 20 now used or more as it is rare but only if complete.So just one piece but the best one of course, Dino himself may be worth 10 dollars. Not much of a reward but still better than the nothings I usually get. The ducks would talk to me, the chickens would just pick. pick, and the dogs talk, and the cats at best will let you pet them, 

      But to actually get a gift besides a stick from a dog , I cant remember an animal coughing up much more than a furball. But here was a Dino the Dinosaur. A cat had to find it and then pick it up and carry it unknown distance just to drop in that bowl for me to find. And believe it or not, a cat to boot. Cats usually dont do much that humans want them to do and to find one that has empathy for you or even another cat is an on demand procedure for them. So in my eyes this is a really big thing and a nice return for the gift that keeps giving. 

       In the long run  will have to address a few issues with the park. I had a complaint the other day from one of the old directors that the cats were shitting around the office. I retorted with just what am I supposed to do since the cats were starving. and in the garbage getting ice balls in their long fur because of getting wet scrapping for food in wet trash bags in the dumpsters. The ice balls rip out and take the hair with them and if cold enough will cause frostbite and with lack of food and health they will die. 

       I have heard complaints from others about the cats laying on their porches and under the campers. They wont feed them but enjoy bitchng about them. Some attempts to spay and neuter were made but they have gave that up since I am feeding. This is not sustainable and the problem is increasing despite as much as i like seeing the kittens come out to greet me daily . I realize there is one maybe 2 females that are not fixed. This needs to be done. It is hard to do or will be hard to trap the 2 mothers because number one they are all black and all except the kittens are ferrel,  They even keep their distance from me until I drop off the food and pickup the empty bowl.  They will have to be tamed down. 

       As far as the cat poop i will offer to buy a load of sand to dump along the fence behind the dumpsters and this will give the cats an area and beautify the dumpster area at same time. It is and was a combination of mud and so forth that atracts water and trash that spills over .  It smells but with the sand it should improve the cat litter problem as well the cleanliness of the area. I also would like to make some five gallon cat houses as i call them and will put a little red light on outside and straw to give them a warm rain tight shelter. The association are the ones that should be responsible. Its their mess and they ignore it. No one wants to spend money to pay for spay and neuter , at least when they can bitch for free. I miss having a dog and still have my cat Ms, Prissy who has been out west with me a couple of times. Lately at 9 oclock nightly I can count on 4 young coons coming up and getting their bowl of cat food. This is costly but I consider it buying good luck. Surely feeding 9 black cats zooming this way and that, makes chances good of the going right to left will outweigh the bad luck of left to right and the good years of luck will add up enough to keep me going to 100.. Only 31 more years. I also have an injured possum who is not to old that comes infrequently or at least I think it does. It seems to come after the coons but they usually dont leave much. The injury appears to be to its foot and it appears to get around good and there are no open wounds apparent so it may heal itself. It appeared to be in good spirits after eating. I will add more pictures I have taken of the cats including the little ones, and the coons and possum. Enjoy, i have.