Energy Prospectus

"The person, who has the bull by the tail once, has learned 60 to 70 times as much as a person who hasn't!"

--Mark Twain (11.30.1835 > 04.21.1910. Samuel Langhorne Clemens,
known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist,
entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest
humorist the United States has produced", and William Faulkner called
him "the father of American literature".)

When I was in the Boy Scouts (~age 12) I responded to a dare by going into a pen and grabbing a bull's tail. He did not like it. I was able to hang on for about a minute before I let go. I barely made it out of the pen before he stuck a horn in me. Memories of dumb stuff like that last awhile.

The lesson:There are many ways to piss off a bull, and don't turn your back on them.

Very little about bulls:

Dan, that could have easily turned out differently; Sounds like it might have been a Hereford, they are considered more docile.

Bulls normally don’t hook a person. The common behavior for a bull is to use his head to bunt you with enough force to easily throw you 20 feet. ... Cowboys call them eaters.

Bulls in a bucking shute are an exception, where they will try to hook the cowboy among other things while he is trying to put on his rig.

Bull can get over a seven foot fence, all he has to do is get his front legs over and than he will wiggle over it.

Beef cattle don’t have much interaction with humans so they are more dangerous, than dairy cattle especially if they have a calf. The cows are quicker than bulls so don’t turn your bank on them.

My father grew up on a dairy farm, joined the Navy at 18 near the end of WWII, spent two years in Hawaii and then returned home to St. Louis and joined the fire department. Farming was a tough life back in the 1930s.

That reminds me of my youth, growing up on a small farm in British Columbia, we had about 40 head of beef cattle, cows, calves, steers and a bull. Once a year or so we would bring them into the corral to vaccinate the new calves, neuter the young bulls etc etc.
I remember a cow with horns chasing my dad around the corral protecting her calf, he go so pissed off at her, he got her in the shute and cut off her horns, just one of those things a 6 or 8 year old remembers!!