January 19, 2011
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A new feathered friend visited yesterday…
I hoped he wasn’t looking hungrily at my chickens.
Last night the phone rang at 11:30 p.m. Now some of you may be awake at that hour, but we were SOUND asleep, deep into dreamland, by then. It was the county sheriff’s office; the dispatcher said that someone reported black cows on the road near Almartha. We get these calls all the time; if there are ever black cattle out, it is assumed they are ours. And they rarely are ours, because we keep the best fences possible, and we’re very conscientious about gates. But we must check, to be sure, for no rest can be had IF cattle might be on the road.
And, to be sure, this time they were ours! Three conniving cows who LOVE the delicious taste of freedom. They are determined to get out because they love to wander, through the hayfields where they are not welcome, nosing around the pit silo where they are not welcome, poking and snacking around the grain building where they are not welcome, and now up on the road and into the wide, wide world, where they are most definitely not welcome.
Fortunately, they’ve been put back into their rightful place so many times they know the drill. A little encouragement, a little heels-kicked-up gleeful frolicking as if it is just all a good time even though we’re mothers with calves of our own, for goodness sake, and back into the pasture they go.
Here’s something they don’t know: today those three independent-minded, fence-jumping cows are moving to a new home! Far, far from the lure of alfalfa sprouts, free grain, silage smorgasbords, and humans driving vehicles on dark roads who can’t see black cows until they are upon them. Banishment is their punishment. Good luck, girls!
But it really isn’t such a cruel punishment, after all. This is where they are going.
One of those country-club prisons we hear about.
This will be their new cafeteria.
Lots of room to ramble up here, in the back of nowhere.
And hopefully, no more midnight roundups.
Comments (5)
Everything but a law library where they could build a de-fence. Oh my a play on words! great post my friend, very clever!
brrrrrr……can just imagine getting out of a nice warm bed, to go out in this kind of weather to round up cattle.
Looks like his brother that we have up this way! I do get excited when we see the Bald Eagles.
I thought you were going to say those girls went to the sale barn!
I love this post. Cows really do have a mind of their own…even if they know that their owners know best. Just like children in many ways. Love the pictures of your get-together. We also have a winter resident eagle up on the Luna hill, as I call our place. Leo Hambelton, bless his heart, calls it ‘Jane’s Ponderosa’. Anyway….the eagle soars right parallel to the truck as we drive up the hill and then teases us with soaring far enough away that we can just see him. One of these days we’ll spend some hours trying to follow his exploits before he heads back north for the spring.
We have a hawk who occasionally visits our back property. We always know he is around even before we see him because the multitude of songbirds who frequent the feeders off our deck suddenly make themselves scarce!