A Tale of Two Neighbors

Today, Friday, dawned cloudy, drizzly, and windy. I wait until almost 7am before venturing out to open the other paddock gate and lead my vagabond cows into fresh grass. Alas, the well laid plans, etc. etc. Four of the cows are in the paddock; the other four are in the driveway. I bless my foresight in shutting the gates before I went to bed last night. After my cheer for myself, I buckle down to figuring out how the cows got out and how to get them back in.

I lower the slats on the fence and try to get around the cows to block their access to the roadway. The gates I carefully shut last night are lovely. They really are. Carved, curved, and charmingly rustic. They are also short and decorative not meant to stop thousand pound cows. So I stand between the cows and the gates and try to wiggle the fearsome four into the paddock. I suppose I don't have to tell you that it didn't work. Oh no! Instead the other four JUMP the fence and join us in the driveway. I am stunned; cows aren't supposed to jump. But these do.

All eight then bolt down to the area around the new barn. Here we have another set of identical decorative gates, which I shut. There is very little room in this anteway to the barn. Just a driveway and a verge. And now 8 huge cows who are rapidly destroying everything in sight. I can't let them into the paddock beyond the barn because the sheep are there. But I realize that eventually I will have to lead/push/pray those cows through the sheep's paddock to the gate of the far paddock and corral them there. There is literally nowhere else for them to go that has not been overeaten.

Off I trudge down the driveway, through the decorative gates to my neighbors, Steve and Michelle. They are in the midst of getting their 3 children ready for school. A bastion of efficiency, they get 3 children on their way to catch the bus, round up wellies, prods, and off we go. It is now about 7:45. The cows are still there. We can't get them to move. We plan ways to lure them through a corridor consisting of me, Michelle, and a ladder (from the horse stall I fell in). Steve will do the heavy lifting.

This plan doesn't work. The cows are extremely skittish. They seem to react marginally better to me. Steve and I swap places. I try to tease them with hay. It works with Romeo but the others hang back. And then something happens. I have no idea what. But they bolt. There is nowhere to go. Suddenly the air is filled with bodies flinging themselves around, hooves slashing near my head, and cows running. One runs right through the fence (a four strand wire fence) three thunder down into the sheep, and four make it to the proper paddock.

I am shaking. Steve is thunderstruck; he has never seen a cow go right through a fence like that. Michelle is as serene as ever. I could take lessons from that lady. She'd give them to me, she's that kind of person. Steve and Michelle are both very special people and I am grateful for neighbors like these.

Now we have to get four cows (sound familiar?) from the sheep's paddock into the back paddock. "Altogether now, let's race up and down the hills, dodge the humans, scatter the sheep, and wreak havoc wherever we go." One gives up and joins the four good girls. Now I stand where I can keep them from joining the three mavericks in the wrong paddock. Sure enough, they try. But I am pretty p.o.ed by now. I wave my arms and mutter dire threats. They turn and exit this scene.

I keep an eye on them just to make sure and join Steve and Michelle as we get our daily exercise sprinting up and down the hills after those three **** cows. Eventually we give up. The cows too seem to have had enough. They cluster as far away as possible in a little nook between a tree and a fence. Steve comes up with the brilliant idea of putting up a portable electric fence corridor. This amazing invention runs on solar power and since there is no sun today, we use a car battery. Steve runs this fence in a wide sweep down to the fence line. Inside it is the gate to the new paddock and plenty of room for the cows to saunter back up the hill and join the good girls.

"What do I do now?" I plaintively ask my wonderful neighbors. The answer is so typical New Zealand that I am still smiling about it. "Go have a cup of tea, put your feet up and wait for the cows to amble into the paddock." It seems that once everything calms down, they will want to rejoin their friends. "What about the sheep? Won't the fence kill them?" No. Sheep stay away from things like that. I thank my rescuers but probably not enough and go off for that cup of tea. It is about 9:30.

Every 15 minutes I look out my window to see if the cows have shifted. After about an hour, I can't see them and pray that they are really and truly in the right paddock. I go down to see. I can't see them; I climb the gate and walk to the crest of the hill. They have moved halfway up the hill and are lying under a tree. The tree is in the right paddock. They are not. The tree overhangs the fence. I begin to despair of ever getting them back to the herd. For the next 4 hours I repeat the trudge down the driveway, the climb over the gate and the cresting of the hill. Over and over.

This last time something new has been added. No, the cows have not moved. But the ram has. I can't figure out how but he is lying inside the electric fence on the cows' side of the paddock. I am afraid he is dead. Did he hit that 9,000 volts and get thrown over the wire to die? I stand still; I don't want to spook anything. I don't want any more sheep wandering in the demilitarized zone and I definitely don't want those cows freaking out again. I back up to the gate, climb it and walk around the paddock and down the road. I think the farm fairies had had enough of a laugh for the day because the cows have joined 'the girls'. And the ram is up and walking around inside the electric fence. Then he walks back to his herd and I realize that somehow the fence has been blown to the ground and by some miracle the ram has not stepped on it either when he went in or when he went out. But that couldn't continue.

Now I hotfoot it to the battery, unclip it, slip over the fence, shut the gate and all eight cows are now confined in the proper paddock. Next I go down to the fence and start winding the fencing up, pulling up the holding stakes at the same time. I am pretty close to done in at this point. Everything hurts; I am bruised, battered and aching. I gather all the fencing equipment and haul it to the gate. Lugging the battery over the gate almost does me in but I manage.  I store all Steve's stuff in the barn, put the fencing in the garage and head for the showers. The first team is off the field. Bring in the second string. Terry is done!