That Darn Cow!!

Sunday Morning. Yep.  One eye on the clock, one eye on the chores.

All of the cows came quietly into the barn.  It was a nice calm morning, no wind, no rain.  All the cows but one.  For the purposes of this blog and being polite, let's call her "Red" rather than what we would have liked to call her by the end of the morning.

Once all of the herd had filed into their tie stalls, we started chores.  Red didn't come in.  But we rather expected that.  She has developed quite a hatred for our new border collie puppy.  Those two just do not see eye to eye, and I think our puppy likes to rub it in.  One bark and off to the woods goes Red.  We had left Sadie (puppy) in the milkhouse while cows came in, just to make sure that she would not upset Red.  But even with Sadie safely tucked away, Red still stood at the gate furthest from the barn just staring at me as I walked out the door to bring her around.  Well, do you remember the story from your Sunday School days about when Jesus cast the demons out of the man on the seashore?  The demons went into the pigs and they went crashing over the bluff into the sea.  So when Red saw me come out the door, she stared me down, then took off like a bullet, straight across the cow yard, crashed through four 2 x 6 x 16 boards on the fence, shattering each one, then proceded to rip across the recently harvest cornfield towards the woods.  The old dog managed to head her off before she got there, but we spent the next 20 minutes weaving in and out of machinery that's lined up along the fenceline out back.  I've never seen so much burdock, pigweek, buttoneweed, and all kinds of prickly weeds!  I became a walking magnet, getting stuck and prickled with every kind of weed barb imaginable!  There were so many weed seeds and pricklies stuck to me when we finally came out of there (without the cow, of course) that I think there should be enough dispersed around the farm to provide us with plenty of weeds throughout the fields next year.

Four wheelers are wonderful.

If it had not been for needing to get to church right away, I would've saddled up and gone after Red.  But in the interest of time, I jumped on the four wheeler and headed out to the prickly weed patch once again.  By the time I got there, the old border collie had rounded her up, (by way of passing through two 4-strand barb wire fences) and had her safely in the night pasture, munching hay with the bred heifers.

So, all in all, we managed to clean up, head up to church, only arriving 10 minutes late.  Only one bad thing - when you get there late, the only seats are guess where?  Way up front!  Oh No!  What happens to an exhausted farmer when you plunk them down in a soft comfortable chair with nothing to do but sit in one place for 45 to 60 minutes after putting in a full day's work before 9 am?  You guessed it!  Lights out!