Demonstration of Chinese Masters Painting Oxen (牛)

If you like art and oxen, this is an interesting video of two skilled Chinese artists at work. Watch the ox appear before your eyes.

牛

World's Slowest Riding-Steer

骑马黄牛
(riding ox)

張僧繇《十八宿神形圖卷 》 ﹝局部﹞，南梁

The Chinese Tortoise is believed to be the worlds slowest riding-steer (ox). It's slow and steady gait has earned it a reputation for being very dependable transportation.

To learn more about riding-steers join the discussion at http://ridingsteers.freeforums.org/index.php

How to Write "Cow" or "Ox" in Chinese

牛
Click here for video.



Oxherd Riding on Ox and Playing Flute
Guo Xu, artist
[Chinese, 1456-1526]
Ink on paper

黄牛

Worlds Largest Oxen in 1930

Worlds Largest Oxen: Mt. Katahdin and Granger

Combined weight 9800 pounds (avg. 4900 pounds each)
Mr. A.S. Rand, breeder
 Stetson, Maine
Photo taken August 24, 1930

Monk's Ox Was Plenty Large

Monk with Single Ox and Cart

The monks at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Valley used oxen to work on their 530 acres of land in the town of Cumberland R.I. The monks were of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance founded in 1098. After a fire destroyed their abbey in Nova Scotia in 1892 they migrated to R.I. around 1900. I wonder if they brought their oxen with them, as oxen were frequently used in Nova Scotia.

Stone was quarried from the monastary property, by the monks, to erect buildings. Oxen moved materials from place to place and helped with the farming by plowing the fields; hooded monks could be seen laboring in the fields along with the oxen.

They also sold items in their gift shop; I expect that may be the source of the postcards from which this photo of the ox originated. In 1950 much of the monastery was again destroyed by fire. The Cumberland public library now occupies the site of the previous Monastery of Our Lady of the Valley.

Our Faithful Ox: Abby of Our Lady of the Valley, Lonsdale, R.I.

(post cards)

The Durham Ox: How Big Was He?

The calf that became known as the Durham Ox was born in North-East England in 1796. Selective breeding for desirable traits was coming into vogue and beef tallow was in demand; extremely fat cattle were celebrated.

Being a large specimen with desirable characteristics of what would become the Shorthorn breed, the Durham Ox was toured around England riding in a special wagon pulled by four horses. I find nothing on record to suggest he was ever used as a draft animal. Estimates of his weight ran as high as 270 stone (1,715 kilograms or 3,781 pounds).

He dislocated a hip in 1807 while unloading from his wagon. When the hip failed to heal, and the ox was slaughtered (two-months later), he had apparently lost some condition; his carcass weighed in at only 189 stone (1,200 kilograms or 2,646 pounds); still quite a large animal.

The Durham Ox had become so popular that he became the subject of several famous turn-of-the-century paintings, and several English inns and pubs are named after him.

http://www.warwickshire-pubs.co.uk/detail.asp?PubId=20

A Durham Ox Dinner Platter

(blue transferware)

How Big Will a Holstien Riding Steer (or Oxen) Get? Pretty Big!

This is Bovine Beauty's Holstein, steer calf --- Fuzz.

And this is Bovine Beauty with Fuzz at an intermediate date.

As you can see in this more recent photo, at 2.5 years Fuzz has become a substantial riding steer. He is now taller than his trainer.

Bovine Beauty and her steer Fuzz are good at traffic control --- they stop it!

According to Oxen: A Teamster's Guide,  Holstein steers will average 2,500 pounds (1,135 kg.) mature weight. They grow rapidly and are a docile breed.

 To learn more about the use of riding steers, or to join in the riding steers discussion, please visit the Riding Steers Forum. The forum is friendly, free, and open to anyone with an interest in riding steers (bulls, or cows).  Auf Deutsch: reitkuh 

(Bovine Beauty is the screen name for this individual, on the Riding Steers Forum. The above four photos are copyrighted and used here with the copyright owner's permission. Copyright Law applies.)

Q: Why do Kittens Get Stuck In Trees?

 

A: Dogs Might Have Something To Do With It.

Squeak the Kitten turned up missing one evening. After it got dark and he still hadn't shown up, I searched the yard with a dim flashlight and couldn't see or hear anything. In the morning before the sun came up I let Harry the Dog out of the pasture (where he spends the night with Scout the Ox) and called "kitty, kitty."  Harry trotted off around the two large-bales, behind the garden, through the brush, and across the backyard to a pine tree --- where he stopped and looked up.

There was Squeak, as seen in the above picture. He'd spent the night in the tree. It was his first time out of the house overnight, and it was cold. Though cats climb trees quite naturally, I've heard they have to be taught by their mothers how to climb back down. Niether Squeak nor Soapy were raised by mother cats. I plucked him from the branch, handed him to Sherry, and rushed off to work.

I don't know if it was Harry the Dog's awesome nose that had come to the rescue, or if he had something to do with getting Squeak up the tree in the first place? (The latter is not hard to imagine!)

The next evening I looked out our window and saw Squeak and Soapy climb up about three feet high on the elm tree, and then climb back down. I guess they had decided it was time to get some practice.   

Best Roller Coaste-er Ox Cart Ride (Turn u-p the volume!)

Grandson keeps the ox cart ride animated.

m-mmwhat?

 

(I think he lost a few teeth on that one!)

"BYE MOM!"

Grandaughter's Ox Cart Ride

Training the steer, Scout the Ox, to cross a roadway while pulling
 a very-precious passenger in the cart.

Ox "training" is just another word for having fun!

Scout the Ox: Steer's First Birthday

Scout the Ox gets "Birthday" cake.

He's one-year-old.

And wants more cake!

Dog leads Steer - Ox

Harry the Dog has some fun leading Scout the Ox down the drive-way. They invented this interspecies play themselves, one evening last Winter. See photos at http://storybrookeripples.blogspot.com/2010/02/serendipitous.html

Your Walking Down a Trail and. . . .

. . . .you hear a cowbell. . . .then a steer comes charging around the corner. What's the first thought that comes to mind?


He's a friendly fellow, Scout the Ox. I was sitting cross-legged in the trail when he trotted up to me and stuck his wet nose on my camera lens. When we walk sometimes he gets taken up with grazing and gets left behind. When he realizes he is alone he comes running to find us.

Autumn: Like The Setting Sun

The Pit

Scout the Ox

Harry the Dog

Close of Day at Close of Season

Ox Twirling Branches On Horns

Scout the Ox likes to twirl small branches around his horns. (Including the Red Twig Dogwood foundation plantings in front of our house!)   Does this behavior have some purpose other than breaking branches?

Ox, Dog, Pony: Three is Company

 

Take away the pony, and now you have two. 

This threesome was a common sight in our pasture, however, with the help of a friend I have found a new home for Peaches the Pony. I was concerned Scout the Ox would gore her at the feed bunks this Winter; he gets pushy with his horns --- and she's spunky enough to challenge him.

She has gone to be with another horse, a horse-person, and a kid that wants to ride. It should be a happy circumstance for her.

I think Harry the Dog may miss her shenanigans --- she was pretty playful with him.  

 

Dog Protects Pony?

I think that Peaches the Pony saw me coming but Harry the Dog didn't --- and he's suspicous of something unusual having entered his territory. At a year-old, he's still not too sure of himself; the livestock guardians we had with sheep didn't really come into there own as guard dogs until they were about two-years old.

^This Side Up! ^

 "Like This?" 

Copy cat kitten.

Cat and Dog --- Friends?

Is the cat okay? Yes.

Harry the Dog is now only allowed in the entryway --- and that --- only occasionally. Soapy, one of our two cats, seeks him out when he comes in. Maybe Soapy's not quite right in the head? (This is the orphan kitten that was reared (nursed) by a dog.)

Soapy never panics --- which may have saved his life more than once. Harry the Dog is a Newfoundland cross Pit Bull Terrier --- he seems to like the cat well enough, but he's a bit challenged in the affection department.

Peaches the Pony Escapes from Horns of the Ox

In Northwestern Minnesota our Autumn is often a very brief period between Summer and Winter --- sometimes measured in days or weeks. Today is one of those glorious days! The leaves are in full color and the weather is splendid. I have decided to include Peaches the Pony on a walk with Harry the Dog, Scout the Ox, and myself.

Peaches is looking for an opportunity for escape --- that's why she usually gets left at home in the pasture. Last time she had a moment of liberty it took me three weeks to find her. So today, I keep her on her lead rope.

My experience with horses has often been that they are looking for an opportunity to pull a fast one. Like Gracie, a retired cow-pony we rode in Texas when we were kids; she liked to take us under a low hanging branch and scrape us off her back. Or Ichabod, who saw his opportunity when I was sitting side saddle while watching my sheep graze on open range; he dumped me off and headed for greener pastures --- wearing my boss's wife's show saddle and bridle. A number of other horses I've ridden have left me feeling they would just as soon throw me over their head as take me for a ride; there was always that battle of wills, mine verses there's.  I came to prefer walking, with a dog at my side, while herding sheep --- dogs were generally eager to be part of the team.

Scout the Ox (my pet steer) seems to fall more into the camp of "man's best friend" than most horses ( I have known a few good horses). He's a friend first. If he thinks he's been left behind he lets out a bellow and comes running.

So here we are, in the video below, walking in the woods, enjoying the fine Autumn evening. I'm leading Peaches the Pony when a playful Scout the Ox turns and bluffs the pony with his horns



She pulls her lead-rope from my hand; now she realizes she's free; she sees her opportunity! So off she goes with me,Scout the Ox, and Harry the Dog in chase --- and is she ever having fun with me! We crash through the brush, gallop across someones lawn, and she humiliates me in front of some passers by on the township road as I repeatedly dive for her rope. But, a mile from where we started this wild goose chase, her unfailing appetite is her downfall. She wanders into a bean field and begins nibbling soybeans; her guard is down just long enough that I am able to catch hold of her rope. She gallops in circles while Scout the Ox makes false lunges at her with his horns, as if to scold her.  Harry the Dog bounces around in the middle of the fray, clearly enjoying the excitement.

When the fun wears off and things calm down I tie the penitent Peaches to Scout's collar and we head for home.

Single Ox Pulling Cart

Scout the Ox Reflects on the Changing Seasons

I wonder if my Carul cu Boi would bring EUR 155,000 ($208,109.90 US).  Would you like to make an offer? (See Monday's post below.)

Family with Ox --- Butter Sculpture

 

Family with Ox

Designed by Marie Pelton, this ox was sculpted from 600# of donated butter by her and her husband Jim Victor. It was finished for display in a refrigerated room at the 2010 Eastern States Exposition, West Springfield, MA

Read more about it: http://www.masslive.com/the-big-e/index.ssf/2010/09/big_es_butter_sculputre_a_crowd_pleaser.html

Top Price Paid for 'Ox Cart'

 

Carul cu Boi

A late nineteenth century Romanian painter’s artwork sold recently in Bucharest, Romania, for EUR 155,000 ($208,109.90 US). Not bad for an ox cart! That makes it one of the top priced artworks ever sold in Romania. The painter's name was Nicolae Grigorescu (1838-1907). The title of the painting was Carul cu Boi, or the Ox Cart.

Oxen helped build this country

Oxen helped build this country
I think every village green should have a statue of an ox. He is one of nature’s finest, most useful and virtuous creatures, and he helped build America. . . .

“Oxen were slow (about 2 miles per hour), but when there was a need to overcome inertia, they pulled with a resolute and steady strength until things started to move again,” retired farmer Michael Williams wrote in Farmers Weekly. . .

Click on title to read more of KEVIN CULLEN at Commercial-News .

How One Team of Oxen Helped Save the Buffalo from Extinction

An American Indian legend tells us that many, many years ago the Oceti-Shakowin had come together into a large camp. There were no wild game and the people were starving.

Then she came to them. Her name was White Buffalo Calf Women, a young woman more beautiful than any they had ever seen; she was dressed in a gleaming-white, leather dress. She brought a precious bundle as a gift — and taught them many things. Before turning to leave she said she would be back. As she was walking away, she turned into a white buffalo calf. Soon after, great herds of buffalo appeared on the horizon providing the Oceti-Shakowin with meat for food, sinews for bowstrings, skins for clothing --- and tepees, and bones for many tools. Thereafter, white buffalo calves became sacred to the American Indian.

   Ernest Harold Haynes Driving his Team of Buffalo Oxen:

shown here in harness though they were trained to a yoke. 

Around the turn of the century (1900), naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes watched a small herd of buffalo stampede up a hill in the Blue Mountain Game Preserve near Croydon, New Hampshire. He was duly impressed with the energy, vitality, and strength of these beasts.

The herd was known as the Corbin Herd after Austin Corbin who had imported some buffalo to his elite private hunting preserve in 1888. Corbin was a wealthy railroad executive who had operated the profitable Long Island Railroad in New York. While at the hunting preserve on June 4, 1896 Corbin was killed. It is believed his coachman’s horses, who were without their usual blinders, spooked at the opening of his umbrella. He was thrown against a stone wall when the carriage upset.

 

Corbin Herd, Blue Mountain Game Preserve, Croydon, New Hampshire

Corbin was gone, but his hunting preserve continued. Around 1904, Baynes had becom acquainted with Austin Corbin [Jr.] which led to he and his wife living in the park at the Haven Cottage. By 1905 there were 150 buffalo in the park and it was during this time that Baynes witnessed the energy, vitality and strength of the buffalo, he wrote, in the olden days [the buffalo’s] meat meant food for the Indians, but we can get along with other foods; his hide meant tepee covering, where wood and stone mean ours; his fur was fashioned into clothing, while we depend on cloths; his bones made implements which now must be silver and steel; his sinews were strung through bows, but our sportsman demand bullets. No; if the buffalo were to survive, it must not be by any artificial preservation, but by fitting themselves into the plans of men. With these words Baynes set out to domesticate the buffalo for use as a draft animal — to harness their energy, vitality and strength --- as oxen.

A Stylish Man Wearing a Buffalo Robe

Vintage Postcard, 1910

Prior to the nineteenth century the buffalo were described as numbered “numberless." They made the vast prairies of America undulate with motion. Estimates range from thirty to sixty million head.

The buffalo’s demise (actually bison, but whoever heard of a bison-nickle) began with firearms and the introduction of horses to the plains Indians in the 1700's. It was  hastened in the 1800's by the industrialization of the tanning process, by inroads made into the west with carts, steamboats, and railroads, and by the popularity of buffalo-hide coats in Europe. A robust trade ensued.

Most of the buffalo slaughter took place between 1830 and 1860. Undoubtedly, politics and the problem of the American Indian played a part.

Buffalo Butcher, Batoche National Historic Site --- Diorama

I would not seriously regret the total disappearance of the buffalo from our western prairies, wrote Columbus Delano, Secretary of the Interior in 1873, as a means of hastening [the Indian’s] dependence upon the products of the soil and their own labors.

Another man, by the name of General Phil Sheridan, went before the Texas State Legislature in 1876, apparently opposed to the legislature’s johnny-come-lately efforts to protect the buffalo. Every hunter should be given a medal with a dead buffalo on one side and a discouraged Indian on the other, he said, once the animals are exterminated the Indians will be controlled and civilization can advance.

(continued below)