Ferdinand

When my sisters and I were still children we read or had read to us many many books.  One of these books was The Story of Ferdinand - the Spanish bull who would rather smell the flowers than butt heads, snort and pant and generally succumb to the social norm.

One thing we found distinctive about Ferdinand, is that he was often drawn sitting back on his haunches under a tree:

Although neither Ju nor myself have spent the majority of our lives on farms or farming, Mel has.  Farming and livestock are her bread and butter.  She has worked extensively with sheep, deer and cattle yet has never in her life seen anything like Ferdinand.  She always assumed it was a quirk of the children's tale - an image which illustrated how very different Ferdinand is to all the other bulls.

And then... one day, while I was staying with Mel and her fiance Al, we were driving back from town and we saw a real-life Ferdinand.  Al turned the car around and we went back for another look - and photographic evidence.

What a pity there were no roses there for him to smell.