On most ranches in the West (or “the edge of the West,” as my manager likes to say) plastic ear tags are used as an easy means of cattle identification. Usually the tags are numbered and a different color tag is used for each year. By the time a cowboy has to reuse a color, the previous class of the same color is usually gone or old enough so you can tell the difference.

We generally place these tags in the ear when we bangs vaccinate our replacement heifers. (That mostly means we get them ready to be mothers.) One year we were using purple ear tags and the thirty first critter through the chute, an oddball Charolais (that means “off white cow”) became Purple 31.

Purple 31 had begun to distinguish herself long before she got her tag. At about six months of age, she had discovered her own tongue, which fascinated her for the rest of her life. Whenever she wasn’t busy grazing, she looked like she was trying to expel the thing from her mouth. Sometimes I almost fancied that in her mind, she was following her tongue around, because it was always way out in front.

But that was not the last of her idiosyncracies, we discovered. She turned out to be a delightful mother, always giving birth to a calf who looked just like her without any trouble. Purple 31 Jr. through the years had a mental connection to his or her mother, and in addition to never being more than six feet from her, adopted all of her mannerisms, including the freaky tongue thing.

Purple 31 also proved to be unable to stay in the right pasture without constant supervision, which we could not afford to give her. She wasn’t mean or flighty about it, just if no one was watching, she simply had to cross the fence, or cattleguard, or whatever was in her way. Purple 31 Jr. had to tag along of course.

She always seemed apologetic when we caught her, and we never had any trouble putting her back. It got to the point where if you saw her out, you could just drive over to her (on either side of the fence, she knew where she was supposed to be,) roll down the window and yell at her. She had picked up enough of the English language to understand the meaning of “Hey %&($@, get out of there,” and with a look of shame, she would stroll through whatever was in her path back to the correct pasture, turn around and give a “moo” of encouragement to Purple 31 Jr. Tongue sticking out, he would then trace her steps exactly, even putting his feet where she had put hers.

Although she was loads of fun and we still talk about her to this day, apparently we didn’t like her well enough to keep any of her daughters as replacements.