Wow, we've had a busy last 10 days. First, Blueberry had a bull calf on Oct. 1, exactly one year to the day after she had another bull calf LAST Oct. 1, which had been the first day of our annual Old Time Farming Days. Now this year, our event was held on Oct. 7 & 8, and was absolutelywonderful---double the attendance of last year, perfect weather, couldn't have been better EXCEPT.......
We had brought Duchess down from the pasture to be our representative display cow, like Blueberry was last year. Well, she tolerated it fine overnight on Thursday and Friday nights (pre-event), and for about 4 hours on Saturday (during the event). Then she decided she had had enough of the public relations stuff and managed to push open her pen and run off into the meadow adjoining the event area. She stopped to look back and see if she was being followed, and went about grazing, so rather than try to corral her with throngs of people about, I just decided to leave her be, figuring she would work her way back up the hill to the rest of the herd.
NOT!! She decided to go on an adventure through the woods, and just flat disappeared for 4 days (we have 387 acres, and I think we walked every inch of it calling and shaking the bucket of grain). By this time I was a nervous wreck. We called additional neighbors that we hadn't yet tried, and lo & behold, one of them said that someone had called HIM trying to locate the owner of a wayward cow that matched her description. SO we contacted these folks, who are horse people, but not cow people, and they were kind enough to let us go racing over there to verify. Sure enough, she was standing there in their somewhat inaccessible pasture, munching away. I figured if I waltzed in there with a bucket she would come right up and let me put a rope around her (like I had done so many times at the barn) and walk off toward the trailer. Again, NOT! I swear I saw her grinning as she trotted back into her "hiding place", which is the patch of woods adjoining that pasture. She would not allow us to get within 10 feet of her. SO here we are, 10 days later, and she is still in their pasture while we have set up a "catch area" of electric wire, which we plan to close off behind her when she enters it. Then we can hopefully coax her toward the trailer and load up and GO HOME!
I have been "chumming" her daily with a bucket of a few ears of corn to get her wanting to come into the catch area, and so far she has. But the finale is yet to come, the actual "catch and load". So wish us luck. We have yet to figure out how she exactly got into their fenced field, unless she crawled through the barbed wire or jumped over the creek gap. SHEESH.
At any rate, I will be RELIEVED BIG TIME when we finally get her back where she belongs, the big turkey!
Still picking out a name for the bull calf, who is SO pretty (but aren't they all?)

Hi Gail,

Congratulations on Blueberry's new calf! I'm glad your event went well also.

So sorry to hear about your ordeal with Duchess, she's always been an independent one! I certainly know all abouit wayward cattle and you have my sympathies. I hope that it is resolved soon. Fortunately she is content just to find a patch of unfamiliar grass and not out on a coss-country jaunt.

Well good luck and it's good to hear from you.

Phil

First let me say that we finally got Duchess back home 3 nights ago. What an adventure. She's getting a bell put on ASAP
AND Diana had a bull calf on Sunday the 22nd. Since her calf and Blueberry's are only 3 weeks apart, we're thinking ox team possibilities.

From Rainy, Muddy Central Missouri

Gail

Whew! I'll bet you're glad that's over! She's probably feeling pretty smug, too.



Congratulations again! The ox idea sounds like a good one.