Calling Cows and Purple Haze

Yesterday Mom and Dad spent much of their day searching for a couple of missing calves which were found unharmed 3 miles away.  Made me think of calling and feeding cows when I was growing up. Below is an edited post from 2005 when my son was 15.

Sometimes when Austin and I are riding in the car, we have these "philosophical" discussions. Sometimes it is  black holes or quantum mechanics and sometimes it is car repairs

Yesterday it was car parts and repairs. I was explaining how car parts, particularly electrical parts, used to be replaced at much greater frequencies. Head lights used to cost a fraction of now, but you replaced several of them over the life of your car. I told him that his Grandpa used to wear out multiple pick up truck horns from calling cows. We talked for a while about calling cows; Austin thinks that his Grandpa probably still wears out horns, even with the newer technology.

Austin has recently discovered rock and roll from the 60s and 70s. As we were driving, Austin had Jimmy Hendrix in the CD player. I speculated to him that Grandpa could condition his cows to come for their feeding to the sound of Purple Haze. Just roll out in the pasture with some feed, open the doors of the truck and put Hendrix on at full volume for a few minutes, maybe with a few horn blasts the first few times. The cows would soon come to the music. Can you just imagine the neighbors going outside in the early morning and hearing the sound of Hendrix with cows answering (mooing/singing along)? They would think Dad had gone nuts. It makes me smile just to think about it (I bet Dad is smiling as he reads this).

Austin isn’t so sure this would work. I am just as sure that it would, but getting Dad to give it a try might be a little tricky. I suppose he use a Merle Haggard CD, but the effect on the neighbors wouldn’t be nearly as fun.