Did We Get The Cows Back In?

written by

posted on

August 18, 2021

Maybe......

Today I'm sharing about one of the craziest adventures I have ever had on the farm from the early days.

Five years ago Mariah and I were doing lots of different things to try to keep the farm financially viable (stay in business :). Some of those things turned out great and others make great stories to chuckle about in the comfort of ones home after dinner with friends.

This is one of those stories.

At the time we had agreed to graze some cattle for a very nice older gentleman from out of state whom we had never met.

He assured us these were good gentle cows, best he had every had.

Haha lets just say there are different definitions of "good" and "gentle."

When I heard those words I thought of our own cattle. They came when they were called and a half dozen would nearly let you pet them on a whim. I knew what gentle cows were and so his description sounded like just the cattle we would like to care for.

We were in for quite a shock....

When the cows arrived (Midnight on New Years Eve) they seemed a little jumpy but hey its dark and they have been on a trailer for hours; nevertheless I had a slightly worried feeling about these "gentle" cows.

The next day my worst fears were confirmed.

They were wild. They bolted at the site of humans, they ran everywhere they went in a panic, and they had some practice in the arcane cow art of jumping fences.

But when you are young and broke you make do with what you have got.

We gradually acquainted them with our presence, taught them (at least most of them)to respect our portable fences and kinda got them to follow us (they would still run away if we walked towards them though).

After several months, we had made a lot of progress and felt that this wild herd was finally ready for their first real test - working them in the corral.

This would involve getting them up (no small task), sorting them, and finally giving identifying tags to their young calves.

After much preparation, Mariah and I gathered a small band of our college friends and began one of the most memorable days on the farm ever.

The initial roundup went far smoother than expected.

Someone gently called the cows and they followed pretty well across a woody field and uphill along a long lane. The rest of us (myself included) gently followed the cows from behind coaxing them along.

I had had fears of spooked cows jumping fences or stampeding somewhere but as the last few cows slowly made their way up the lane and into the corral I gave a great sigh of relief that things had gone so uneventfully well.

As I watched up ahead the cows already in the corral were excitedly running around a small shed located in the center. Like a small racetrack the cows racked up laps as the stragglers slowly joined them through an open gate from the lane.

And then things and the cows took a turn for the worse!

Out of the corner of my eye I watched as the the cows on the "race track" seemed to take a new turn - out a small exterior gate of the corral that opened to a gravel road and an open yard around a house.

In shock I watched as over 100 mostly wild cows ran out the gate and my perfect day turned into a disaster.

Once outside the gate, a wide paradise lay before them.

A lush green yard, a small unfenced hay field and then a county road and across it several hundred acres of the neighbors unfenced row crop field planted in lush green cereal rye, and beyond that F highway and all the undoubtedly fascinating places that could lead a group of wild curious cows.

We jumped the fence that made up the lane and desperately tried to stop the now running cows from making it to the county road and the field of rye beyond.

Temporarily sidetracked by the lush lawn of the house we were stunningly able to round up about 80 of the cows and gently coax them back into the corral.

They then promptly turned and ran back down the lane we had called them up through to the corral along with the stragglers who never made it to the corral - but at least they were on the farm!

I then turned my focus to the 20+ cows who had hit the county road before we could stop them.

In dismay I saw the wildest 7 or so cows thunder down the road towards F highway (about a mile away).

Desperately I had one of my friends jump in their car and drive a different route (well above the speed limit) to try to get to F highway before those wild cows did.

Focussing on what I could still control I and a few friends began a slow encirclement of the remaining cows that were only a 100 yards down the road contentedly grazing the road ditches.

Taking full advantage of the tall field of cereal rye, we half walked half crawled in a semi circle trying to gradually get behind the cows so we could coax them back up the road and towards the corral.

I can distinctly remember the damp earth beneath me and the tickle of the rye stalks on my cheek as I gradually raised my head above the level of the rye to see exactly where the cows were.

Grueling minutes passed as we moved slowly through the rye repeating the process of slowly spying on the cow's position.

The thought (however inaccurate) that this must have been what the Native Americans and pioneers felt like as they stalked herds of buffalo passed through my mind more than once.

At last we were behind the cows and though startled to see us emerge from the tall grass, they amiable trotted back towards the corral.

About this time I got a call from my friend on F highway who informed me that he had arrived before the cows and was now slowly following them back along the county road towards the corral (about a mile away).

We assumed new positions in the rye field (there was no fence along the county road so we didn't want these wild cows to take a side trip).

After about 20 minutes the wild cows trotted into view and began to move along the road towards the coral.

As we made our presence known they reacted much more violently and bolted towards the coral but by the mercy of the Lord they did not jump our short portable fence along the neighbors yard and instead thundered through a gate into the corral.

Four hours after I was remarking how perfectly things were going, we had the cows once again back on our farm.

We then tried to round up the cows and get them back to the coral (they had all run back down the lane and were now spread across one of our fields) so we could accomplish our actual goal for the day, and we were remarkable successful.

Only one cow and her calf eluded our attempts to coax her back to the corral.

After several tries she charged one of my friends and chased him up a tree.

We didn't bother her any more after that.

My memory gets pretty fuzzy after that. Though I have been told that we did indeed work the cows, sort them and give I.D. tags to the calves.

I do remember trying to get a rough count on the cows and realizing how difficult it is to count a bunch of wild cows that are running in circles.

It was decided that we were pretty sure we had gotten all of them back in.

Our count was right about at the number we were supposed to have sometimes 1 below sometimes 1 above.

We canvassed the surrounding fields and roads and never heard of a "wild cow siting."

So did we get the cows back in?

Kinda.

They were at least back on the farm, but it was over a year before we were able to get that wild charging cow out of her field and into the corral.

I learned lots of lessons that day.

Foremost of them all - make sure your gates are shut :)

All those cows have been gone for years now but every once in a while after a hard day I think back on that experience, chuckle, and say a prayer of thanks.

The Worst Laid Plans

Today, I am sharing this story in an attempt to bring healing to your farmer's (my) mind and psyche after a series of events that individually would have been minor hiccups but taken together in the exact series proved to be a challenge that I found insurmountable (well nearly anyway but we will get to that). So let's get into this complicated trail of improbable and ridiculously frustrating events. It all began about two weeks ago as I was arranging to get some of our pasture raised pork back from the facility where the primals (large chunks of meat that have not been cut into steaks, roast, sausage yet) were being stored after they were harvested (we have a USDA inspected facility where we cut and pack everything but at this time we don't have the capacity to harvest animals onsite - we are looking forward to having that someday!)Anyway, the facility is three hours away, so in an attempt to save money on freight, I messaged a friend who often hauls frozen meat for us to see if he would be coming that way. He said yes and gave me the date. Here all my troubles began. For reasons I can't explain, though, I have long since wracked my brain on the subject, I misread his date and never replied to him. Though he was very clear about it, I somehow got it in my head that he was coming through a week later and I clearly remembered setting up the appt - even though I never did. The stage for disaster had now been firmly set but it gets so so much better and more improbable. Now you should note that our pork breakfast sausage is one of our best selling farm products (for good reason) and inventory had been getting lower and lower. However, I had a plan in place......My friend would bring the pork to us the next Friday and would arrive at noon (I still don't know where I got Friday or noon from because I never messaged him back but it was firmly fixed in my mind and I made the whole plan based on this fact). Our team would be primed to immediately grind some of the pork into sausage and we would be restocked just in time for the weekend and hopefully just before we ran out - yay and koodos to the grand mastermind of a farmer for fitting everything together perfectly while saving on freight 🙌. I even messaged the facility manager and asked him to put some of the pork in a cooler so it would be thawed and ready for us to immediately work. I had practically thought of everything - what could possibly go wrong!Now it had been an extremely busy week, but I was riding high until Thursday evening came. It was then, I got a call from my friend who asked me if I needed something hauled the next day? I was floored. I reminded him the plan and he (rightly) informed me I had never made one but the facility manager had asked him when he was coming on Friday and he was confused so he called me. Well, there I was in a pickle. I needed that pork or we were going to run out of sausage. However, my friend was not already coming through, so if I had him make the run it would cost much more as it would be a dedicated trip and because of the ridiculously late notice he wouldn't be able to get it delivered until 3:00 P.M. the next day - when our processing crew normally leaves for the day. Clearly this wouldn't work so I thanked him but told him I would just pick it up myself. In my mind I was already formulating my second great plan. In it, I would just leave my house at 2 am get there at 5am, load up and be back by 8:30 with plenty of time to spare for the team to get the pork sausage done. I hung up and began to realize I had a larger problem than I thought. Let's imagine it like a tangled web of portable fencing that is wrapped around a prickly thorn tree - just to keep things clear. First prickle - one of our delivery drivers had asked off the next day (Friday). Second tangle - our warehouse manager was then set to cover his route. He had to pickup a heavy load so he would be taking the larger delivery box/van. Double knot - 4 pallets of pork would need to be picked up and our other delivery vehicles only hold 3 pallets. Fish tail looking tangle - Because our warehouse manager was going to be covering deliveries I was supposed to pick up our turkeys first thing Friday morning from where they were harvested so they would be frozen and ready to start packing on Monday. Tangle around a thorn - a pallet that needed to go back to the facility where the pork was harvested had accidentally been taken from the farm freezer to where we rent cold extra cold storage in town and they wouldn't open till 8 a.m.Ball of tangles with spikes coming through it that looks like a solar system model in yarn and harpoons - For my plan to work, I needed to leave at 2 a.m. to pick up four pallets with a vehicle only big enough for three pallets bringing a pallet with me that I couldn't possible get access to until 8 a.m. and be heading in the opposite direction to pickup Turkeys by 8:30 A.M...... PerfectI sheepishly called my friend back and asked if he could haul it after all. He graciously agreed and I began concocting my third plan - a better plan undoubtedly!As you may recall, my team was set to leave on Friday afternoon at the time the pork was to be delivered. So late Thursday I gave them the great news that I needed them to work an extra 3 hours on Friday - all to get this sausage done. I asked Mariah to make them homemade sourdough cinnamon rolls as a special treat to thank them for their dedication though - and assured them it would be worth it!Friday came around and I raced off to pick up Turkeys, made a special stop at our rented cold storage to get that pallet (lets call it "the package" just to make it seem more dramatic), and then brought it back to the farm so it would be ready to load on my friends truck after he dropped off the pork at 3:00 P.M. Then fate struck down plan #3. The following facts may seem unrelated but tragically they will unite into a tale of woe so follow carefully. -At 3:07 I got a text the pork hadn't arrived. -At the time I was talking to my father and was about to ask him if he could check a small group of cows we needed up the next day. He hit some bad service and the call dropped. -I put a quick call through to my friend which revealed that due to traffic he wouldn't arrive till 4:00. The timeline to get the sausage done was now shrinking! -Mariah asked me to make sure to bring some eggs home as we were having company over that evening and she needed them for the meal. -I raced over to our on farm processor and forgot to call my father back. My processing crew prepped everything that could be prepped as they waited, and I sat down to write a weekly farm update (this very email - about a very different subject haha). Then, just as my friend pulled in with the pork, I got an urgent call that the hot water heater in our chick brooder was making noises that sounded like an asthmatic elephant was having an alergic reaction while playing the tuba. I was dubious, but he put his phone on speaker and all I could contend was that I thought someone must simultaneously be playing the electric triangle with a rake as well! To say those were noises which should never come from such a device is an understatement! So I dropped everything and raced back down the road to where the chick brooder was. On the way over, my phone rang and the manager of our processing team informed me that after unloading the truck he found the pork was frozen like a brick. He didn't think they could grind any of it in that condition. Fearing an imminent explosion in the chick brooder, I told him to just try and dropped my phone in the seat of the truck in my hurry to enter the brooder. Upon entering, the elephant seemed to have recovered (owing in large part to my farm help unplugging everything and turning off all of the valves). A quick inspection showed that it was not in fact a musically impaired elephant but instead a falsely open valve forcing water at high pressure backwards through the machine. Thankfully he caught it early and after draining the excess pressure and resetting the valve all seemed well - at least for a moment. Then I got back into my truck simultaneously realizing that, in my haste, I forgot the eggs my wife needed for supper at the processor (we pack and wash eggs in separate building there and we always eat the broken and excessively weird shaped and dirty ones ourselves which we set aside when packing). As I raced back, I returned a call from our processing team manager and he informed me the pork was just jamming up the grinder because it was frozen so hard. I thanked him for trying, told him to season what little had made it through the grinder, and offhandedly asked him if he had loaded "the package."My heart sank, as he explained that he had been focussed on the pork and getting the team going. The truck left before he brought "the package" out to load. Frozen pork, no sausage, no back haul of "the package" back to the other facility and a high trucking bill. It was a gut punch to say the least. If that call about the asthmatic tuba playing elephant had come just five minutes later I would have been there to load the truck myself. Alas, if a fourth plan had ever existed the last nail in it's coffin was delivered in that moment.As I loaded the busted dirty eggs into the truck, I glanced at the clock and noticed with alarm that it was already passed the time I had promised Mariah to be back with the eggs. I raced down the road and remembered to call my father back (several hours had passed since the dropped call) and talked briefly about how the farm and animals looked. When I asked him about that small group, he was confused and said he hadn't seen them. Bewildered I told him where they were supposed to be and he exclaimed something along the lines of "Oh dear. We are up a creek without an oar, with three holes in the bottom of the boat, and a hurricane on the horizon". It turned out that not seeing the group (or knowing it existed) he left several gates open when he was there hours before and the cows could pretty much be anywhere. We both raced to that part of the farm and I just couldn't get it out of my mind that if the call hadn't dropped and if the pork been on time I would have told him about the group and prevented this entire mess! Mercifully, when we arrived the cows were just where they were supposed to be and hadn't had any curiosity to explore any other fields past the open gates. I sighed in relief and gasped as I saw the time and raced home -very late indeed!Just as I came through the door with the eggs, I got a text that, in total, 47 packs of breakfast sausage had been produced......Sadly, that yield could almost be measured in man hours per pack of breakfast sausage and it represented poignantly the grand failure of no less than 4 master plans. The seeds of failure had been sown the week prior when I never responded to my friend (but distinctly thought I did) and no amount of exertion could undue that wild chain of events that seemed dead set on the same outcome - namely being out or nearly out of breakfast sausage for the weekend - quick if you hurry you might be able to order them before they are gone! I am recovering slowly from the trauma of this insane saga but writing it out is helping me heal and hopefully it gives you a chuckle as well. Blessings Your Farmer -David

{Watch} Onto Fresh Pasture

As part of our regenerative grazing plan we are continually moving the cows, sheep, chickens...... onto fresh pasture. Some people imagine this would be quite the roundup to be constantly moving all of those animals. While it does take time, the animals also learn very very quickly that when we call it means fresh pasture is just ahead and they sure get excited about that. Often just a few calls and the cattle or sheep will just follow us into the fresh sward of pasture. One of my favorite parts of moving the cattle is just how excited they get. They are massive creatures and yet they jump and throw their heads around in excitement just like their young calves haha.

Did We Get The Cows Back In?

More from the blog

The Worst Laid Plans

Sounds Of The Farm - 100% Grass Fed To Finish Beef

{Watch} Onto Fresh Pasture

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