Tales From The Bullpen by Jared Cudd

Our youngest son’s birthday is July 10th. There are a few other kid’s birthdays in the summer months on the Kauk side (my wife’s side of the family). So I believe a new tradition was born last year. That is that the Saturday closest to July 10th both sides of the family gather at our house and the kids swim and we have a combo birthday celebration. That way we don’t have so many birthday parties. But, that’s not the only thing that happens on that day. That’s just the afternoon/evening portion of the day. What happens that morning? To much the like or dislike, not sure which, of other family members, it is the Cudd cattle working day. What better way to spend family time, and also combine both sides of the family, than a little bonding time working some cattle. I can’t think of a better way myself.

Yesterday was no different. It actually happened to be on the 10th exactly. That made Dax very happy because he LOVES cattle and the days when we work them. It just also happened to be on his exact birthday this year. That was just icing on his cake.

On the night before we work cattle we sometimes are able to get them in the pasture where the corrals are and that simplifies the day when we start with them already gathered. The next morning all we have to do is sort and work them. Well, Dax and I tried the night before to get them up to that pasture, with no such luck. We have been gone a lot and haven’t spent a lot of time with the cattle lately. That actually makes a difference in how they behave and how easy they come to you and cooperate. We got a few in but we didn’t have much luck overall. So we had no choice but to wait until yesterday when we had more help.

As the family began pulling up about 8:45 yesterday morning they realized that none of the cattle were gathered by the corrals. In fact, that was the first thing some of them said as they got out of the vehicle. Not a “Hey, how you doin” or “Howdy” or anything. They led off the morning with, “Well I see you didn’t get em gathered last night, huh”. “Nope, gonna take more than two of us this time I’m afraid” was my response. I’m not sure they were thrilled, but nonetheless, that’s the way it worked out.

We had the flatbed truck, 4 wheeler, and ranger all available to herd these sometimes non-cooperative animals in. Not to mention we also had some young, in shape, athletic brother-in-laws to chase them down as well (not sure if they will read this or not, but I bet they appreciate the compliments and confidence in their ability). We had cake sacks as well as a horn to gather them up. We also had years of cattle experience in this group of 5 men and 2 boys. It seemed we had everything we needed. So the fun began.

We started by driving down on the 4 wheeler and ranger and we started to push them up towards the corrals. They were all the way across the quarter. As we were doing this, the truck was honking enticing them to come get some grub. We got some in through that first effort. I thought, “Alright, this is going as planned”. We still had some behind we had to go gather. We did that and had em headed towards the corrals (I’m going to save several details to limit the length of this post). We got them almost to the gate and then it started. All they had to do was turn right, one turn, and they were right where they needed to be. Then one cow broke through and that opened the flood gates for all the others do the same.

We had cows taking off and calves dodging us like Barry Sanders in his prime. I mentioned the athleticism earlier. It’s hard to out athlete a 500 pound bull calf. They are shiftier than you might think. This is usually when my frustration begins. This is when I get aggravated that we are having to start over.

We started back down there after them again. We got them rounded up again and headed back up to the corrals. I’m on the 4 wheeler because I know the land better than the bro in-laws (it’s some pretty rough terrain). There were some people off and on in the ranger. Not sure who all was in there. They kinda switched off I guess. But the in-laws spent most of the time on foot. I didn’t really think this would matter much. But, as the day went, it did matter. We get them back close to the gate again. Then POW, they did it again. When this happens I like to say that cows are stupid. I’m not sure if they are or if they are actually smarter than we give them credit for. Either way, they do what they can to avoid going through the chute, getting tagged, getting shots, and getting branded and banded.

This is also the point that I usually get really frustrated and negative, bad, or hurtful words come out of my mouth. Anyone that has worked or helped work cattle probably knows what I’m talking about. No matter how hard I try, it always ends up getting the best of me when things don’t go well working cattle. We’ve had em bust loose a time or two, but this was a day like I hadn’t had before. That was actually said multiple times by everyone in our group I think. Some of those that said it have dealt with cattle their entire life. I didn’t say much this time though. We gathered together at the gate and decided to give it one more try. So we headed back down again.

We go all over the place getting them gathered up again. I almost decided to give up after round 2, but by this time my wife was out there in muck boots and shorts running through the pasture helping. She had 0 plans of helping with the cattle, she had birthday parties to get ready for. But, when she saw what was transpiring, and she knew how I usually was when it came to this, she decided to come help. Like I said, I considered stopping, but she insisted we give it another try. If she was out there running through pastures and poison ivy infested creeks, I figured we could give it one more try. Not so sure my bro in-laws thought the most of that idea, but they went along with it.

We finally had them gathered again. We had them all going straight toward the gate. All was good, they were finally cooperating. We were almost finished finally with this dreadful gathering of cattle. We had 5 people all spread out walking along helping keep them together and go toward the gate. Then Barry Sanders and the rest of the crew got loose and scattered once again. I had never encountered this many unsuccessful chances at getting them in. But, based on how I normally would have handled things in the past, I’m not sure what the level of my frustration would have normally been by this point. But those negative, bad, or hurtful words would have been in abundance and the attitude and vibe would not have been good. I’m not sure what caused a set of cows, who normally cooperate pretty well, to be so spunky yesterday, but they were.

We ended up with about half of our cows and calves in the lot and were able to go ahead and work them. So at a later date we will have to gather the troops together again and get the rest of them taken care of.

I’ve mentioned several times how I normally would have been upset and that I would have lost my cool several times by the end of the day. Here’s why I believe yesterday was different. I have been studying the fruits of the Spirit lately in my morning Bible study. Galatians 5:22-23 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law”.

I have prayed lately that God would help me bear these fruits because I have struggled with a lot of them. If you ask those that know me well, they would tell you I’m not the most patient person on the planet. Yesterday I was with two of the most patient men on the planet though, in my dad and my father-in-law. They are both great examples that exemplify what the fruits of the Spirit should look like. So I have had two great examples of these fruits for all of my life. The problem is I have always known what these fruits were, I just haven’t always put forth enough effort to chase after them myself, until lately.

I even got up yesterday morning and prayed on the back porch for God to help me accept whatever happened that day. I told God I hoped things went well and we got everything done we sat out to do, but in the event it didn’t, please help me to have patience and be able to stay calm in the face of adversity.

Sometimes when we pray for things, we are challenged. I prayed for these things for awhile now, and then I had a chance to either bear these fruits or not. I’m not sure if this is God challenging us, satan tempting us, or God allowing us to be challenged or tempted. I’ll let you answer this question yourself (I would actually love to hear your opinion on the answer to this question either in the comments on here, or the social media post for this link, or private message). Whichever it is, I have been challenged before and failed. Yesterday, for the first time probably ever, I can say that when it came to some of these challenges, fruit was finally produced. To some that might sound like a small thing, but for me it was a huge accomplishment. It wasn’t me though, it was God and his Spirit working in me. It felt so good to not blow up and go crazy when things didn’t go the way I had envisioned in my head. And guess what, it all ended up ok, and the rest of the day was a success instead of me making it miserable for myself and everyone else.

We must pray to God to help us with our weaknesses. Then realize the opportunities that are put before us to grow. I challenge everyone to find our weaknesses and pray that God will help us to overcome those weaknesses. For so long I either didn’t pray for these things, or when I did I didn’t pay attention to the opportunities I had to grow and therefore let them pass me by. I still have a long ways to go, but yesterday I made great strides due to a few cows and calves that had a little bitta wiggle in em!

We just spent the last few days with my parents in Red River, New Mexico. We had a great time. We got to do a lot of fun things as well as just relax. We ran into several people that we knew. It’s amazing that every time we go out there we run into people we know. So if you are reading this and we ran into you out there, we really enjoyed seeing you and catching up! It’s so crazy that some of the people we saw are friends that live close to us or family that don’t actually live that far away, and yet we run into them 8 hours from home. It happens every time we go out there. It’s always fun to see familiar faces while we are there!

One thing that I love about being there is that it is so peaceful. It is, for the most part, a family atmosphere. I love going out and sitting on the porch in the mornings and evenings just to relax and drink some coffee. This year the house that we stayed in was right by the river (stream or whatever you want to call it). When I say right by the river, I mean about 5 steps from the back porch.

One afternoon while we were there I walked into our bedroom from the back porch, which had a door leading outside. As I walked through the bedroom I saw this.

This is my Bible. On top of it are baseball gloves and baseballs. There are air pods and hats around it. My wallet is on the other side of it. Now this is confession time. We had been there two days. Guess what had been used and what hadn’t. Yep, that’s right. We had played catch every day. Multiple times. We played catch not only because we are a baseball family and like playing catch, but my youngest son is getting ready to go to Regionals this week and we had to play catch to stay ready for that. In Daxon’s words, “My coaches said I need to play catch at Red River.” I don’t blame them. I am the same way as a coach. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with playing catch. But guess what hadn’t been used the first two days we were there? That’s right, the Bible.

When I saw what was in this picture, my mind immediately went to the things that cause us to get distracted from God. We pile things in our lives on top of what we already have happening and sometimes we get too much going on. What does this lead to? I feel like this photo is a perfect description of what really happens. The things that should be the most important get pushed to the bottom of the pile. We end up doing those things at the bottom just when we feel like have time for them.

Here’s the thing about getting in the word. We have to make time for it ourselves. Our bosses let us know when we need to be at work. Coaches let us know when we have ballgames, practices, etc. We have to make time for God ourselves. It doesn’t just happen. I have talked about in here before how for a lot of years I was “too busy” to spend time in the word and didn’t spend much time talking to God. But, here’s my conclusion I came to. That’s an excuse. Here’s how I fixed it. I realized that I had a time when I woke up in the morning. I get in a routine and get up at the same time most mornings. I do the same things each morning. We all do. Here’s what I had to figure out. I had to get up just a little bit earlier and guess what, I then had time to spend with God each morning. Am I perfect at it? No, absolutely not. I just confessed that I went two days at Red River and didn’t do a Bible study, pray, or spend any time working on my spiritual self in the morning. But, guess what I did each morning before I did anything else those first two days? I got up and ran and worked out. How about that for having my pile out of sorts?

It happens to all of us. The more we put these things ahead of what really matters, the easier it becomes. We put work ahead of God and our families. We put so much emphasis on our jobs that we neglect our family. We don’t spend time in the Word. We put sports, or other hobbies, ahead of God. We do those things instead of worship God or we are so tired or busy from doing those things that we can’t find time to spend time talking to God. We are just too tired. We put the value of money ahead of God. We become greedy and don’t do things the way God wants us to do them. We let these things happen once and think it isn’t not a big deal. It’s just once. Then we let it happen again and it’s still not that big of a deal because it’s not all the time. Then again and again. Before we know it it’s happening a lot because it got easier every time it happened.

That’s how our pile can get out of sorts. The things that should be at the top get pushed down to the bottom. Here’s what I realized on day 3 when I finally reorganized my pile. I spent time the next few mornings with God outside on the back porch before I started the rest of the day. It was so awesome to go out there and listen to the water flow over the rocks because it just made me feel so at peace. Then I would look up from there and see the mountains and would just be so thankful for all the beautiful things God created that we get to enjoy. Not only did I not do this the first couple of mornings because I was “too busy”, but my days were a whole lot better and more peaceful when it started with God. Amazing how that happens, huh!

It’s so easy to get our piles of life out of whack. The things that should matter most get pushed to the bottom because of what the world tells us matters more. Guess who that is at work? You guessed it, satan. He wants our pile to be turned upside down from what it should be. Don’t let him win. I challenge us all to check how our pile is stacked up. If the things that should matter most are on the bottom, it’s time to fix that. If everything is as it should be in our life and our pile is organized just right, then just keep on rockin’ along. We just have to make sure that we check ourselves from time to time. It doesn’t take long for our lives to end up like the picture of my dresser this week. God will send us little reminders like He did me this week if we will just pay attention. When that happens, it’s time to reorganize our pile!