So I was riding freight south outta Dunsmuir to Roseville with my road dog when our train sided to let another train pass. We were somewhere near Redding I think, because we had just rolled out into the valley from the Siskiyou mountains (and consequently seen signs of human civilization again) and we were in some rural area next to a farm with a bunch of livestock. I got up from the mini well we were lying in after the other train had mostly passed by to take a look at where we were and I saw the weirdest fucking thing in a fenced off cattle pasture.
All the other cattle were standing around in a group on the side of the pasture furthest from the tracks but on the side of the fence closest to the tracks there lay the strangely arranged, seemingly fresh carcass of a cow.
There was no sign of any flesh, organs, entrails, or even any blood on the ground. Instead there was only the perfectly intact (except for a neat slit across the stomach) un-tanned, clean skin of the cow, with the eyes still in if i remember correctly, lying about a foot away from the totally clean and intact (or maybe some of the bones were disattached at the joint but lying in place its hard to remember) bleach white skeleton. There was no smell, no blood no visible decomposition etc. There were no crows/ ravens/ or vultures around.
It seems to me that if the farmer slaughtered the cow for meat he/she wouldn't do such a surgically professional job of taxidermy and then carry the resulting product back out to the pasture to just lay there. That shit woulda been thrown in a gut pile. It couldn't have been killed on the spot by a predator or human without leaving blood/guts everywhere and whatever did it did a damn good job of totally cleaning the corpse. I've tried my hand at cleaning skeletons and even with chemicals and tools it takes forever and this skeleton was as white as teeth on a toothpaste commercial lying next to a fresh pelt, with no obvious sign of intentional preservation, that would have been dust in the ground by the time the skeleton was clean like that.
I would have hopped down to take a closer look but the air brakes hissed and I got back down to avoid a good whack on a steel bar seeing as theres no slack action like on an unloaded well car IM, and then we were off. You see the weirdest things off the side of the tracks sometimes. I guess people do weird shit there cuz they think no one will see them, and you see them and you're just hoping they dont see you hahaha
Now I'm not confidently familiar with all of general procedures of livestock farming, but i cant think of any cause of this other than some kind of alien chupacabra shit. Oh well
All the other cattle were standing around in a group on the side of the pasture furthest from the tracks but on the side of the fence closest to the tracks there lay the strangely arranged, seemingly fresh carcass of a cow.
There was no sign of any flesh, organs, entrails, or even any blood on the ground. Instead there was only the perfectly intact (except for a neat slit across the stomach) un-tanned, clean skin of the cow, with the eyes still in if i remember correctly, lying about a foot away from the totally clean and intact (or maybe some of the bones were disattached at the joint but lying in place its hard to remember) bleach white skeleton. There was no smell, no blood no visible decomposition etc. There were no crows/ ravens/ or vultures around.
It seems to me that if the farmer slaughtered the cow for meat he/she wouldn't do such a surgically professional job of taxidermy and then carry the resulting product back out to the pasture to just lay there. That shit woulda been thrown in a gut pile. It couldn't have been killed on the spot by a predator or human without leaving blood/guts everywhere and whatever did it did a damn good job of totally cleaning the corpse. I've tried my hand at cleaning skeletons and even with chemicals and tools it takes forever and this skeleton was as white as teeth on a toothpaste commercial lying next to a fresh pelt, with no obvious sign of intentional preservation, that would have been dust in the ground by the time the skeleton was clean like that.
I would have hopped down to take a closer look but the air brakes hissed and I got back down to avoid a good whack on a steel bar seeing as theres no slack action like on an unloaded well car IM, and then we were off. You see the weirdest things off the side of the tracks sometimes. I guess people do weird shit there cuz they think no one will see them, and you see them and you're just hoping they dont see you hahaha
Now I'm not confidently familiar with all of general procedures of livestock farming, but i cant think of any cause of this other than some kind of alien chupacabra shit. Oh well
