The best Christmas present I can ever remember receiving was a sparkling new, Daisy BB rifle when I was 8 years old.
It came complete with a pad of paper targets that fit into a metal holder that actually sounded like a bell when you hit the bull’s-eye. Even though Santa was a reluctant provider (she was convinced I’d put out an eye), Mom acquiesced as I successfully argued, “it would be useful around the farm to get rid of those danged sparrows, plus, all of my friends were getting them, too.” I sighted it in at 20 feet and could make that bell ring nine out of every 10 times before heading to the woods to bring back some meat for supper.
Being an expert hunter in those days, I artfully tracked the prey through the light snow that covered the ground and sneaked upon a gigantic cottontail rabbit. I can still see the animal sitting broadside to me at about 40 feet. Carefully, I took aim, squeezed the trigger, and actually watched the tiny pellet arc from the barrel of the new air gun to land precisely into the side of the rabbit …where it very harmlessly bounced off. The wily rabbit didn’t even flinch, but rather, turned its head toward me as if to say, “What’s the deal, here?”
Last month, I lumbered into the house one evening carrying a long box, sat down in my favorite chair, and started to open my newest purchase, when my wife walked by and sighed, “Really, Jerry, another new gun?”
“Oh, no, this is the latest thing in state-of-the-art livestock handling. It shoots a dart that can accurately and safely deliver a dose of medicine to ailing cows or calves much more humanely and with less stress than having to drive them into the corral and run them through the squeeze chute.”
She still had her eyebrows raised when I added, “Plus, all my neighbors are getting them, too.”
A neighbor and I had fun sighting it in when I first purchased it. Figuring I could usually get within 20 yards of most of my livestock, that was the distance we chose to make the adjustments, using one of the three practice darts that came with the gun. At 60 feet, both Marvin and I could hit the bull’s-eye on the end of a round bale almost every time. Last week, I got to use it, for real, for the first time.
A cow had become severely lame almost overnight and needed a dose of the newest, most effective medication. The medicine is very expensive, but it had worked miraculously on cows showing the same symptoms, when I had administered it before I bought the gun, and I was looking forward to administering the drug without the hassle of driving her to the corral. I took great care in filling the dart with the prescribed amount of 10cc’s, which equated to about 50 dollars when you add in the cost of the dart. Managing to get within about 10 yards of the cow, while she was eating hay, I decided to use only three pumps of the air rifle instead of the four I had used in practice, since I was so close. Aiming carefully, to put the dart in her neck, I squeezed the trigger and watched the dart arc gently…and land in the dirt about six inches from her front foot.
Like the rabbit of yore, she turned to me with an expression of annoyance, but unlike the hare, her nonverbal was, “Really? You call that a bull’s-eye? I’ll show you a bull’s-eye.” She made one small step for bovines and broke my dart squarely into two pieces with one amazingly accurate hoof.
