Not Again
If you're on the road in the vicinity of our place tonight, drive carefully and watch out for a nearly invisible Angus on the loose in the dark. The good news is that his partner in crime is caught, presently cooling his heels in solitary confinement. The on-the-loose steer is actually inside an area encircled by an electric fence, but, with his level of disrespect for such fences, he might as well be on the loose.
The two steers have been locked into a small pen for three weeks, with tall steel panels all around and a sizzling hot electric fence several feet inside the panels, to discourage any thoughts of taking a running leap over the panels. The rest of the herd is grazing several miles away in LaVerne's pasture. Shane reasoned that the two steers being fattened here know now that they are alone in the world and will not try to get to the other cattle that used to tempt them on this farm. So he carefully fenced (with double strand electric wire, with another fence outside that) a slightly larger area adjacent to the small pen, and let them out into the larger pen tonight.
On cue, 45 minutes later, I spied them in the neighbor's milo field across the road. For these outlaws, that seems to be the typical time lapse between entering and exiting a new area. I called Shane, delivered the bad news, and left for about a half hour, as I had planned to do.
Shane recruited Grant, and somewhere along the line they picked up a four wheeler at LaVernes. When I got home, I changed into running shoes (Ha. I know how ridiculous that sounds--just wanted to let you know that I wasn't wearing sandals or Crocs this time.), grabbed the broom handle that broke off the brush last week, and headed out to help, feeling more invincible than usual, with that long white stick in my hand. I got an assignment right away: "Go around the back of the house and bring them east along the north side." It was getting quite dark by now, and after the steers ran into the cedar trees, I had a hard time seeing which way they were facing, but I eventually got them stirred out of there, and joy, joy, they headed for the small pen we were trying to put them into.
But they never quite got there. They both, one by one, jumped over a wooden fence panel along the side of their route toward the pen, splintering the top board as they went. That put them back on the north side of the house where they first were when I got home. Grant ran around the south and then west side of the house, covering the same tracks I had covered earlier, and I took up Grant's post at the east end of the house where they were supposed to head north and then west. Shane was to my right, guarding the area beside the machine shed that opens onto the road This time we planned that as soon as they were headed west toward the pen, Shane and Grant would follow them and I would race to the outside of the wood panel they had jumped over earlier to deter them from doing a repeat.
One of them made a break for it past Shane and headed for the road again, but we managed to get the other one caught in the pen. Actually he ran into the small barn that opens into the pen, and Shane quickly closed the barn doors. Then Shane, on the four wheeler, went looking for the rogue steer. He found him in the alfalfa field south of the farm buildings. The steer headed west and got into the pasture--the same maneuver he had carried out repeatedly a number of weeks ago when the rest of the cattle were still there. By then it was too dark to see much of anything, and Shane announced that we were giving up for the night. He was going to let the captive steer out into the small pen by the barn again, in hopes that the wayward steer would come looking for his buddy.
It was 9:45 when I got back to the house. Shane called just now to say that he and Grant will be over at 7:00 tomorrow to try again to get the steer in. He's recruiting Hiromi and me to help. If anyone living in the vicinity wants to compress your morning exercise into a short period of time, feel free to sign up for the next act in the Partridge Road rodeo. 7:00 sharp.
The two steers have been locked into a small pen for three weeks, with tall steel panels all around and a sizzling hot electric fence several feet inside the panels, to discourage any thoughts of taking a running leap over the panels. The rest of the herd is grazing several miles away in LaVerne's pasture. Shane reasoned that the two steers being fattened here know now that they are alone in the world and will not try to get to the other cattle that used to tempt them on this farm. So he carefully fenced (with double strand electric wire, with another fence outside that) a slightly larger area adjacent to the small pen, and let them out into the larger pen tonight.
On cue, 45 minutes later, I spied them in the neighbor's milo field across the road. For these outlaws, that seems to be the typical time lapse between entering and exiting a new area. I called Shane, delivered the bad news, and left for about a half hour, as I had planned to do.
Shane recruited Grant, and somewhere along the line they picked up a four wheeler at LaVernes. When I got home, I changed into running shoes (Ha. I know how ridiculous that sounds--just wanted to let you know that I wasn't wearing sandals or Crocs this time.), grabbed the broom handle that broke off the brush last week, and headed out to help, feeling more invincible than usual, with that long white stick in my hand. I got an assignment right away: "Go around the back of the house and bring them east along the north side." It was getting quite dark by now, and after the steers ran into the cedar trees, I had a hard time seeing which way they were facing, but I eventually got them stirred out of there, and joy, joy, they headed for the small pen we were trying to put them into.
But they never quite got there. They both, one by one, jumped over a wooden fence panel along the side of their route toward the pen, splintering the top board as they went. That put them back on the north side of the house where they first were when I got home. Grant ran around the south and then west side of the house, covering the same tracks I had covered earlier, and I took up Grant's post at the east end of the house where they were supposed to head north and then west. Shane was to my right, guarding the area beside the machine shed that opens onto the road This time we planned that as soon as they were headed west toward the pen, Shane and Grant would follow them and I would race to the outside of the wood panel they had jumped over earlier to deter them from doing a repeat.
One of them made a break for it past Shane and headed for the road again, but we managed to get the other one caught in the pen. Actually he ran into the small barn that opens into the pen, and Shane quickly closed the barn doors. Then Shane, on the four wheeler, went looking for the rogue steer. He found him in the alfalfa field south of the farm buildings. The steer headed west and got into the pasture--the same maneuver he had carried out repeatedly a number of weeks ago when the rest of the cattle were still there. By then it was too dark to see much of anything, and Shane announced that we were giving up for the night. He was going to let the captive steer out into the small pen by the barn again, in hopes that the wayward steer would come looking for his buddy.
It was 9:45 when I got back to the house. Shane called just now to say that he and Grant will be over at 7:00 tomorrow to try again to get the steer in. He's recruiting Hiromi and me to help. If anyone living in the vicinity wants to compress your morning exercise into a short period of time, feel free to sign up for the next act in the Partridge Road rodeo. 7:00 sharp.
posted by Mrs. I (Miriam Iwashige) at
8:44 PM
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