Paul Marchant

I spent a few days around Springfield, Missouri, this fall, and although I was a couple weeks too early to take in the spectacular scenery of the beautiful autumn colors the Ozarks annually offer up, I was somehow caught up in the spirit of the Shepherd of the Hills.

I’ve never been particularly fond of birds of any sort. Really, there’s nothing pleasant about a mess of nasty starlings or pigeons nesting in the eaves of the calving shed or devouring the silage pile. It’s the bird world’s answer to rodents – pure avian avarice.

I’ve been hobbling around, dragging my leg like an old stifled bull for two or three weeks now. What I had thought and hoped was simply a pulled hamstring appears to be something a little more severe.

I tend to get a little sentimental at times. Sentimentality is not an altogether bad trait, but it sometimes gets in the way of practicality and things like wise business choices. No doubt, sentimentality has cost me more than a few dollars over the years.

Although not as engulfed in pomp and ceremony as the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, no less treacherous and fraught with peril is the annual sorting of the bulls in the Basin, east of Oakley, Idaho. Similar ceremonies are no doubt held on ranches from Yakima to Yoakum.

It was one of those days when Mr. Murphy’s law ruled supreme. As a matter of fact, I think the entire Murphy family was in on the act. It seemed as though any event going to occur that day was going to go wrong for me.