Saturday, November 17
Round about eight this morning, our youngest group of heifers had a conversation that went something like this:
FEARLESS LEADER: Hey! Some nice deer has knocked down the fence for us! Let us stage AN ESCAPE!
MOB: Yay! Escape!
FEARLESS LEADER: We have escaped to the road!
MOB: Yay! Road! Which way?
FEARLESS LEADER: We go... that way!
*mob mob mob*
MOB: Yay! Another road! Which way now!
FEARLESS LEADER: Up the hill!
*mob mob mob*
MOB: This hill is boring and steep.
FEARLESS LEADER: Then we will go into the woods!
MOB: Yay woods!
*mob mob mob*
MOB: Yay woods!
*mob mob mob*
MOB: Yay... hey, there sure are a heck of a lot of woods out here, aren't there?
*mob mob*
MOB: Trees are boring.
FEARLESS LEADER: Um....
MOB: Hey, isn't it about time for breakfast?
FEARLESS LEADER: Okay, does anyone remember which way we came from?
MOB: No! We are not woodscows! But we are very hungry!
FEARLESS LEADER: Well, let's see what's in that direction....
MOB: Trees!
FEARLESS LEADER: Ah, but in that direction --
MOB: More trees!
FEARLESS LEADER: Oh. Well --
MOB: We are hungry! And bored! And surrounded by trees! This isn't fun!
FEARLESS LEADER: ...I don't wanna be leader any more.
LEADERLESS MOB: HALP!
Which was probably about the time that the deer hunter came around and asked if that group of cows was supposed to be rampaging through the woods, and our Mennonite employee and I groaned, hopped on the bike, and went looking.
It is surprisingly hard to find a formerly rampaging mob of cows in the woods. I ended up leaving the bike to the Mennonite girl and trekking around on foot, and even then I pretty much stumbled across them, as they had gone into a huddle and were sulking quietly about the unfairness of it all. Got them out of the woods by a mixture of coaxing and bullying, put them back in their field, fixed the fence, and fed them so they could sulk on a full stomach.
Idiot cows.
In the meantime, one of our three sausage hogs was having the following conversation with herself:
HOG: Hmm. Feels like I'm in heat again. Shall I escape?
HOG: .... sure, why the hell not.
We had noticed this development, but as the hog always does this when she's in heat, and as she never goes far, and as we had our hands full with the juvenile delinquents, we were ignoring it. We (and the hog) had neglected to remember that the hog would be escaping into the field where the milking herd was currently grazing. About the time we got the ex-woodscows dealt with I heard a particular type of bellow from the vicinity of the herd. It was a bellow particular to the Jersey breed of cows, a bellow which translates roughly to "OMG NEW TOY! I loves it! Let's all play with it until it falls apart!"
"Whoops," I said.
So then we had to rescue the hog from the cows, which wasn't easy, since the whole lot of them had surrounded the hog by that point and were dancing, bellowing, head-butting, frothing at the mouth, et cetera. The hog, at first inclined to take this calmly, soon began to panic (as one does when surrounded by eighty frolicking beasties weighing half a ton each and equipped with numerous hooves). The cows loved this. Panic was cool! More panic!
In the meantime the Mennonite girl and I are trying to seperate one increasingly frantic hog from a throng of dancing cattle. I thought we were going to have piggy pancake for a bit, but in the end we got her back in her pen with nothing more than a bruised ego.
Idiot hog.
Idiot cows.
... why am I in farming again?
FEARLESS LEADER: Hey! Some nice deer has knocked down the fence for us! Let us stage AN ESCAPE!
MOB: Yay! Escape!
FEARLESS LEADER: We have escaped to the road!
MOB: Yay! Road! Which way?
FEARLESS LEADER: We go... that way!
*mob mob mob*
MOB: Yay! Another road! Which way now!
FEARLESS LEADER: Up the hill!
*mob mob mob*
MOB: This hill is boring and steep.
FEARLESS LEADER: Then we will go into the woods!
MOB: Yay woods!
*mob mob mob*
MOB: Yay woods!
*mob mob mob*
MOB: Yay... hey, there sure are a heck of a lot of woods out here, aren't there?
*mob mob*
MOB: Trees are boring.
FEARLESS LEADER: Um....
MOB: Hey, isn't it about time for breakfast?
FEARLESS LEADER: Okay, does anyone remember which way we came from?
MOB: No! We are not woodscows! But we are very hungry!
FEARLESS LEADER: Well, let's see what's in that direction....
MOB: Trees!
FEARLESS LEADER: Ah, but in that direction --
MOB: More trees!
FEARLESS LEADER: Oh. Well --
MOB: We are hungry! And bored! And surrounded by trees! This isn't fun!
FEARLESS LEADER: ...I don't wanna be leader any more.
LEADERLESS MOB: HALP!
Which was probably about the time that the deer hunter came around and asked if that group of cows was supposed to be rampaging through the woods, and our Mennonite employee and I groaned, hopped on the bike, and went looking.
It is surprisingly hard to find a formerly rampaging mob of cows in the woods. I ended up leaving the bike to the Mennonite girl and trekking around on foot, and even then I pretty much stumbled across them, as they had gone into a huddle and were sulking quietly about the unfairness of it all. Got them out of the woods by a mixture of coaxing and bullying, put them back in their field, fixed the fence, and fed them so they could sulk on a full stomach.
Idiot cows.
In the meantime, one of our three sausage hogs was having the following conversation with herself:
HOG: Hmm. Feels like I'm in heat again. Shall I escape?
HOG: .... sure, why the hell not.
We had noticed this development, but as the hog always does this when she's in heat, and as she never goes far, and as we had our hands full with the juvenile delinquents, we were ignoring it. We (and the hog) had neglected to remember that the hog would be escaping into the field where the milking herd was currently grazing. About the time we got the ex-woodscows dealt with I heard a particular type of bellow from the vicinity of the herd. It was a bellow particular to the Jersey breed of cows, a bellow which translates roughly to "OMG NEW TOY! I loves it! Let's all play with it until it falls apart!"
"Whoops," I said.
So then we had to rescue the hog from the cows, which wasn't easy, since the whole lot of them had surrounded the hog by that point and were dancing, bellowing, head-butting, frothing at the mouth, et cetera. The hog, at first inclined to take this calmly, soon began to panic (as one does when surrounded by eighty frolicking beasties weighing half a ton each and equipped with numerous hooves). The cows loved this. Panic was cool! More panic!
In the meantime the Mennonite girl and I are trying to seperate one increasingly frantic hog from a throng of dancing cattle. I thought we were going to have piggy pancake for a bit, but in the end we got her back in her pen with nothing more than a bruised ego.
Idiot hog.
Idiot cows.
... why am I in farming again?
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