Ranching and Reminiscing

On Thursday Ray got a phone call from the manager of our park Guy Carvajal, asking him to meet his dad to give him a hand feeding his cattle.  He had helped him once before and I knew what a kick he got out of it so I had to go see for myself what he did.  Guy and his dad and his cousin own cattle, a bull, two llamas (or impalas as Mr. Carvajal calls them), two horses and two burros. The baby burro (named Bob by Guy’s granddaughters) was born a few days before we arrived at the park.
 
First things first, moving the feeder over to the fence.

And then throwing the hay to the cattle along with the feed which is a mixture of corn and mesquite beans.

The benefit to having the llamas is that they will contract any diseases first, thus alerting the rancher to protect the cattle.


This is mama burro with baby Bob.  She is very protective of Bob but I was able to get a photo of him milking and Ray was able to get close enough to him to pet him.

This is the bull with the ring in his nose.  He is very tame, however.  I told Mr. Carvajal he probably has no choice being the only bull among all those female cattle.


I just love this picture of Ray and Mr. Carvajal.  It took them about 15 minutes to feed the cattle, but we spent about 1 1/2 hours there.  Not only did we enjoy watching the animals (especially when the horses would kick at the llamas) but were so privileged to be able to listen to so many stories told by Mr. Carvajal as well as to learn so much about his life, the cattle and the history of Mission, Texas and the Rio Grande Valley.