CRESWELL — The telltale slurp of rubber boots in thick, sloppy mud signals the arrival of Jim Sly marching toward a giant red barn, a thundering herd of nervous cows in the foreground.
“Let’s go!” the Creswell farmer calls out, with the slightly exasperated tone of a parent trying to rouse a sleeping teenager for school. The cattle cooperate, inspired by Sly’s wooden prod.
Sly is sorting these mostly black Angus cows, moving the whole herd into one pen and then diverting a half-dozen of them back into another, according to a complicated set of reasons that are largely born of the rancher’s instincts and the bovines’ track records. The job has him busy enough that he quit working heavy construction a year and a half ago to devote his full attention to the 210-acre ranch.
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