This Is A Test

Dan asked me to move the cows on Friday. Simple sentence, complex execution. I sense that this is a test to see how well I can do on my own.

I need to draw you a verbal map of the shifting site. There are two paddocks, each bladder shaped with the wide ends spreading up and out and over a steep hill. They are next to each other but both necks empty into a small corridor that then empties into the red, red barn paddock. Don't let the red, red barn description fool you. It is actually an old shed in which we store hay that in some distant past had one wall painted red. Alessia calls it the red, red barn and now, so do we.

Aside from the obvious problems of hiking up a steep, wet, poo-infested hill, there is the challenge that you cannot shut off the left hand paddock from the right one as you maneuvre the cows down into the front paddock.  One gate swings the right way for blocking access but the other only goes in the wrong direction, leaving a bolt hole of significant size. I can only assume that previous farmers had better behaved cows than we do.

So I decided to get smart. Sort of like cramming for an exam. I reconnoitred on Thursday. Noted all the ways into the occupied paddock and laid a hay path from the gate through the corridor and into the front paddock. It was fairly late when I finished and I decided not to attempt to round up 8 cows all of whom are clad in basic black in the dark. Three of the cows are a chic all black, and the rest have white faces. Three have pure white faces, one has black circles around the eyes, and then there is Sour Puss. Someone threw a chocolate mud pie right in her face (probably richly deserved) and she has black spatter all through her white face.

So back up the hill I go and wait for Friday. Do I need to tell you that it rained all night? Howling winds, sideways rain, the whole bit. Friday everything was sodden. Walking was a real challenge. Down I went, dodging puddles, into the front paddock, right by the drenched hay (not too appetizing now), swing open the gates and go to greet the cows who are miraculously gathered near the gate and not up over the hill.
Romeo steps out perkily to meet me and is followed by one other white faced cow. They both saunter blithely by me and right into the front paddock, stepping on the hay as if it were their own special red carpet.
I am mightily heartened. This could be easier than I thought. But alas, I had forgotten about Sour Puss. Most of the rest of the cows, hesitantly start to follow Romeo. Sour Puss cuts them off, wheels sharply, and up over the hill go the remaining six cows. Followed by a very dejected me. I know already how this will turn out. Sure enough, it does. Several fruitless forced marches over the hill later, I turn to Plan B.

Leaving the interior gates open, I go back to the road, walk up and around the paddocks, cross through a different paddock to the right of the one the cows are in. Hike through the tall, wet grass, climb another gate, and approach the cows from their rear. Or so the plan went. Unfortunately, Sour Puss was on the alert. She would have made a marvellous sentry in WWI. She throws back her head, calls the troops, and up over the hill they go. All six. Romeo and Mercutio stay in the front paddock. I give up. I try again in the afternoon but it is a repeat of the morning, When I check in the evening, all 8 are in the front paddock but I don't have the heart to try to get in to shut the gates behind them. They'll just run back up that hill, or worse, the hill of the other paddock. I decide to leave them until Dan comes on Sunday.

Dan arrives and I explain the previous events. I have obviously failed the test. Dan accepts this like the stoic he is and goes down and shuts all 8 cows in the front paddock. Sour Puss and chorus were already there when he went down and didn't even rouse themselves when he walked through them to shut the upper paddock gates. I nervously ask when we will be moving them to the new paddock. "Tomorrow morning" is the terse answer.

Monday morning arrives. Alessia goes, once again, into the car seat. We drive (!!) down the hill, shutting all our neighbors' gates, shut the gate to the road and then park blocking access down the hill. My new job is pretty darn simple. That's what I get for flunking Friday's lightening round. I stand by the car. That's it. All of it. Once the cows have rounded the first leg of the hill and are on the verge, I get in the car and drive it slowly up and past the entrance to the new paddock, and park it to block the cows from continuing on into our garden.

I stand. The cows amble out the gate, Dan moves them gently up the hill and around. I follow in the car. Romeo spots me and stops dead in the road. He is puzzled. Don't I like him anymore? Is there no hope? Why am I abandoning him to this 'man' when I could be giving fists of hay to a deserving swain? This is not a bull of quick intelligence but he is faithful. I don't want to honk the horn; that would be chaos. Nothing for it but to wait for Dan. Up he trudges and Romeo obediently moves to the verge. Dan doesn't even ask why I haven't managed to get the car into position. But I do see his shoulders sag as he goes on by.

The rest of the shifting is uneventful. The cows walk smartly into the paddock and we're finished. We pack up to go back down to Auckland and as we drive by, all 8 cows are lined up on the fence placidly watching ouur departure. I am irresistably reminded of the Gary Larson cartoon where you see all these cows in a pasture standing arounding smoking, chatting, etc. One (an ancestor of Sour Puss) is sentry and calls out 'CAR' and all the cows drop down to all four and begin eating grass. I'm pretty sure that all our cows are standing around chatting right now. Not smoking; after all this is an organic farm.