July 2, 2002

Good morning farmers. Everybody was busy yesterday it seems. My day sure was.
First thing after doing morning chores was to check on the location of the bull that was supposed to be in our pasture. He had gone visiting, took flight (sort of) over the pasture fence and was romancing the neighbor cowladies. Hormones know no bounderies. The neighbor who owns the bull fixed the fence while I rode down into the neighbors place to find the bull. He didn't want to leave the ladies of course, but they're pretty wild so didn't want to stay around me and my horse, the bull thought following those wild gals was too much work and he finally went where I wanted him to go, sort of. Northwest instead of northeast toward the gate. Bulls are so big and very quick when they aren't looking totally lazy, so they are sometimes hard to convince that they really want to get out of your way. Finally, after considerable redirecting he was back in our pasture, the cow and her week old calf (a suprise, the owner thought this cow was open) were heading over to join him and all was well, for a while. We decided we could take them home through the top edge of the horse and mule pasture and out another gate on to the road. The in and out gates are only about 300 ft apart, but the mules were ready for fun and chased the poor calf through the fence into the pasture he just came from, Mz Cow was frantic and we got her back out with her calf before she took down the fence. That left us will 4 horses and 2 playful mules and a bull who wasn't feeling playful. The horses and mules were quickly moved to an adjoining pasture. We took the bull home before anything else could happen.
The calf hid out all day, it was evening before I saw the cow with her calf. So I saddled Breezy again and we went to put them into the small pasture, they were a bit wild from all the trauma earlier in the day but Mz Cow learned that I can outrun her on a horse, and that I won't chase her if she is doing the right thing, so after that we got along ok. The sun was just setting when I got her down the county road and into her owner's pasture.
In between all this my day was filled with garden tending and riding. Today looks tamer, but I do need to ride another big pasture and look for 10 cows and a few calves and see where the fence is down. Apparently some of another neighbor's cows are mixed up in the bunch, maybe I can get them back on to their own sides of what's left of the fence.
Hope you all have a great day, count your blessings.
I see that Jewel and I posted at the same minute! Funny. It actually took me over an hour from the time I started writing my post, so many interruptions, today is getting interesting already.........

This message was edited Tuesday, Jul 2nd 1:32 PM