July 10, 2023
Big fellow, gentle generally and a quick learner is The Bull. He is not the fastest to approach us when we ride out with the bucket of pellets, but he is the biggest. One day he came so hard at the bucket that he knocked it out of my hand. Recall we are training the cows and The Bull to come to us by taking a half full bucket of pellets out each morning and most evenings. It is working! When they hear our Kubota 4 wheeler enter the lower pasture they start rambling towards us. Sometimes a few cows will jog. The Bull meanders, but when he shows up he goes to the biggest pile and makes it his own.
Yesterday, Logan, a fellow I need to tell you about and our part time helper, told me we need to put the cows in the lower arena. He’d been out checking the fences after a night with particular hard winds and found a tree had fallen across the fence and broken the fence. I grabbed the red bucket with some pellets, proceeded into the pasture. Yep, the cows and The Bull showed up and were carefully led into the arena. We locked them up for several hours while the fence was mended. Not too big a trick.
Then it happened. Late in the day, our neighbor Sean calls and asks if we have a white headed black bodied bull. "Yes, we do," I said. "No you don’t," he said, "that bull is in my back yard." Phooey (actually expressed more sternly) how do we get that bull back. I had come in for the day and bathed. We had the grandkids that afternoon over to swim and for dinner. I was done, I thought.
We grabbed the Kubota and called Logan. He was out back with the trainer examining how to improve the out door arena. He hopped in the Kubota, we stopped by the barn and picked up the red pellet bucket and headed next door. Sean, our neighbor, was out front pointing to The Bull and ready to help us. Two readily apparent issues: how to get The Bull back to our pasture and how to fix wherever he got out.
I slowly drove the Kubota in front of The Bull while Logan sat in the back shaking the red grain bucket. Sean comes with us on his tractor. Sean opens gates as we coax the bull with the feed, then he shuts the gates to keep his horses and cows from following us. We found an old gate between our properties and The Bull slowly follows us through. One issue solved.
Then we all ride the fence and can only find one spot The Bull could have wandered through. The Big Sandy creek runs through both of our properties. At the dividing line there is barbed wire across the creek. But the water gate that apparently functioned in ancient history was no more. We pulled some ‘very temporary’ fence across the creek and promised to fix it better later. Another unforeseen task that needs immediate attention- tomorrow. Or the next day.
