Tolkkinen: Saying goodbye to the last of our cattle

CLITHERALL, MINN. – I said goodbye to our last steer this weekend. Kept my voice bright and cheerful so he wouldn’t know something was up. He looked at me with his soft, dark eyes while the snow built up on his shaggy black coat. He looked like he’d been sprinkled with powdered sugar.

He didn’t know his future, but I did. Soon my husband would coax him with a bucket of oats into an old cattle trailer and close the door and he’d be trapped there, enclosed in a rattly metal contraption for the first time in his two years. Hauled down a bumpy gravel road, icy air blowing in through the slats, seeing sights he’d never known existed: paved roads, towns, a world that goes on and on beyond comprehension, at an unbelievable speed.

The horses crowded him away from me, as they always do. They’re the pasture bosses; they can strike him with their quick feet. They can nip him and he can’t bite back because he has no top teeth. Cattle don’t. They have a pad on the top and teeth on the bottom. So he’s learned his place. Those who can hurt you have the power.

We’ve never named the steer. But I’ve sung to him, and to the horses, and there have been times when we’ve all gathered by the fence just hanging out. Horse, steer, the cat on the tractor, the dog poking her nose through the fence, and me, us living creatures somehow equal in that moment, agreeing that it was pleasant to be together on a summer day.

The steer was born on our place. At that time, we had a small herd of beef cattle, about 10 of them, cows and calves. They grazed on pasture all summer long. They had a barn and a shed they could shelter in, and shade from cottonwoods and old oaks.

But then a renter damaged the house we owned in Bemidji and, unable to get a contractor to call us back, we did the repair work ourselves, traveling five hours round trip every weekend for nearly a year to gut the bathrooms and rip up flooring and install new fixtures. The work meant we would be gone during calving season, which meant that calves could die. Before that could happen, we sent the cows to the livestock auction in Fergus Falls. We kept two steers for ourselves.

Around here, people often raise their own beef. From our small farm, we can hear cattle bellowing in neighboring pastures, maybe because it’s getting near feeding time, or bulls challenging other bulls. Weaning time is the worst, when you separate the calves from their mamas, and they bawl for each other. One time after bawling all night they suddenly grew quiet. My husband, suspicious, went out to the barn to find the calves had broken down the gate and were contentedly nursing on their mamas. He reported back that they had milk on their noses and victory in their eyes. Imagine a 600-pound baby still needing its mama.

“If that were the case for humans, mamas would be running for their lives,” says my husband.

I nearly wept when we sold our cattle. The guy who hauled them said he feels the same way, every time.

Now we’re down to one steer and three horses, two that belong to someone who rents our pasture. I greet all of them in turn.

They always look my way and often come to the fence to blow in my face and nuzzle my shoulders. In the summer, I wave flies away from their eyes.

There’s a reason, though, that I leave a fence between me and the steer. He’s gotten big and rambunctious and he’ll ram you, if given the opportunity. He’s charged my husband. A shout and waving arms will drive him away, but you have to be on guard.

There’s no gentle way to say this, but we’re going to eat the steer. My husband will take him by trailer to the meat locker where he will be slaughtered. I hate to think about those last few hours of his life. But it’s reality. We need to know the consequences of our actions. Hunters know this. They see their prey fall, and the best of them feel pity for the animal even as adrenaline and pride floods their limbs. Our steer will be scared for a few hours. I wish I could spare him that. But the kill itself will be merciful, a quick shot and then oblivion. And for us, hamburger and steaks for months.

It could be worse for him. He could have lived in a feedlot, no grass to eat, fattened with corn and growth hormone. No shade to shield his black coat from the summer sun.

At least he’s had a good life.

And there could be worse deaths.