M is for the mudflaps on my pick-up truck

This morning I took 5 calves to the sale at New Summerfield. My usual cowboy pardners (G-man and James Dean) were not available to go with me today. I can usually get someone who has gone with me before to go just for the breakfast served there at the Sale Barn. If you've not been to a cattle sale, it is kind of a time travel experience. To see how many cattle are sold so quickly by the pound, to a smokey room of buyers, by an old fashioned auctioneer is a sight to see in this day and age. Anyone interested in "Americana" should go with me before the Government outlaws all of this and Walmart will be the only place you can get beef.

When I'm by myself, I usually just drop off my calves, match the numbers they stick on the calves to the ear tag numbers they have so I can keep records, and go. They mail me the check on Tuesday. But if I have someone with me, or if I am feeling nostalgic, I will go in and have breakfast. Two eggs over easy with toast and ham. There's lots of different folks in there. The buyers are there. They represent outfits that want to buy truckloads of calves (50 calves or so) that are a "similar lot" to ship to feedyards (or pastures) down in the Valley, or up in the Panhandle, or up to Kansas. There are lots of other types of buyers, but those are mostly the ones I'm selling to. Some local sellers like me are in there. The guys that work the sale, the auctioneer, and others are there. There are lots of old cowboys in there drinking coffee. I think some old timers come in just to socialize. I always hear a few things I have never heard before. Like today, a guy came in and told another "I see your horse changed colors." One cowboy told another "they ought to give you the breakfast and charge admission to watch you eat it." Its entertaining at the least, but I feel right at home.

Some of my family and friends have suggested I am a redneck, you decide (these are actual examples):

• You have free range chickens in your yard, chicken poop in  your garage, and no mulch left in your flowerbed...you might be a redneck.
  
• When you go out at night with your shotgun, your neighbor yells for her children to come home...you might be a redneck.
  
• When you come in from the pasture and your wife says she's not sure if its you or your truck that smells like fresh manure, but either way its going to embarrass your daughter...you might be a redneck.
  
• When your neighbor pulls up into your yard while you're mowing, you kill your lawnmower, and after it backfires, he feels obliged to hum the first few bars of the Green Acres TV show theme song...you might be a redneck.
  
• Most people think you would've named your second child, if it were a boy, Levi, but not because you're Jewish...you might be a redneck.