Cowboying isn't as romantic as it seems

Today I thought I was going to work on the portable poultry pen. Right after I got started Dad called and needed some help moving the cows. I met him, Jake and Bob Jr. at Flagon Pasture. Since it was time to put bug repelling ear tags in the "momma" cows, we were trying to herd them to the catching pen so we could tag them. We had a bit of trouble with this because, among other things, one cow didn't want to go and the new head stall wouldn't open wide enough for the cows to go through. It didn't take long to sort those things out. We were almost done. One more to go: one of the new heifers.  All we needed was for her to walk out of the pen.  Dad was trying to herd her toward the gate and she didn't want to go. She turned, sprinted with her head down and slammed into dad at full speed throwing him to the ground and into one of the cattle panels. She hit him so hard that his body bent one of the steel panels. She ran over him, made a lap, and ran over him again, stepping on his head. She continued to run around the pen trying to find the way out, hitting the panels that Dad was trying to roll under in order to get away. Jake, Bob Jr. and I were scrambling to figure out how to get her out and get Dad out of harm's way. She hit the panels one last time, knocking them apart and running out. Dad was left laying in the manure and bleeding from his head. After a moment, he made his way up, and we all went to the house to check out the damage. Wouldn't you know, he was cracking jokes before he even got up. That's my dad, cowboy through and through. He's fine, by the way. He did have to go get staples in his head, but he's tuff. Some days cowboying is fun, some days its hard, and some days it's just painful.
--Will