Frustration

 

Today was the first day since I got here that I seriously thought of ditching the farming dream and finding something easier to do, such as ditch digging or Formula One racing.

It all started with my final stock check the evening before. Chickens were safely in the coop (after a spirited half hour around the paddock chasing them). The sheep were all gathered safely in their favourite paddock, #3. And the steers, I thought, were bedded down in the new barn paddock. I was half right. They were bedded down, but in the barn itself, not in the grassy paddock.

My dilemma was what to do. They were lots bigger than I, it was almost dark, and the polytape (portable electrified fencing) was down and dragged through the paddock. So I called Dan. The result was that I found a working flashlight (a success in itself) and went out to repair the tape.

But first I had to get the steers out of that nice, warm, dry, hay-filled barn and into the cold, damp paddock. I did it. I won’t tell you how in case some animal activist reads this and reports me. But they left. Unfortunately for me, they like me and wanted to hang around and be chums. So I was constantly shooing them back so they wouldn’t tramp on the tape as I wove my way around the paddock, rewinding the tape; the flashlight in my mouth. My teeth still hurt.

Finally I get the tape reset, unhook the battery, then clamp the yellow lead, re-hook the battery, listen to hear that the gismo is working. I hear nothing but my sinuses are so stopped up I couldn’t hear Pavarotti if he were still around to belt out an aria.

I wake up the next morning in the blissful belief that I solved a major problem last night and that things can now return to normal. Just shows how wrong one person can be.

The polytape is down again. The cows have decimated the hay in the barn and the entire floor is covered with cow dung. This time I can’t even find the yellow lead that electrifies the tape. I shoo out the steers. I am getting quite good at this. Then I start winding up the polytape to keep it out of the muck and mud. I figure I have 2 options. I can try to move the steers to another paddock by myself or I can let them destroy the barn. I’m not particularly thrilled with either option.

But somehow they have managed to pull apart the fencing gismo and there is no way to prevent them getting back into the barn. So I mull over my options as I rewind the tape yet again. And then my miracle happens. As I am about a third of the way through winding, the yellow lead comes up wrapped around the tape.

So I threaten the boys with bodily harm, or grilled steak, and chase them across the entire paddock so I have time to rethread, re-hook and reattach everything. I must have finally done it right because ever since they just sit and look at the gismo, but they don’t touch.

In my next blog, I’ll tell you what else happened to me on my day of frustration. Right now I am just too whipped to write any more. Til next time!