Escaped Cow

One needs to be flexible if one has a farm, even if it is only a mini-farm.

When we awoke this morning we figured it wold be a pretty run-of-the-mill Sunday morning. But no: Bret had just headed out to milk when my mom called at about 6:15 saying, "We have a problem. The cow is out."

Just yesterday my mother had purchased a bred beef cow to keep on her property and Bret had moved her over there along with our steers, T-Bone and Bo. Bret had spent loads of time checking the fences, but this morning she found a part of the pond shallow enough to cross and get onto a neighboring property.

Now it is about 9 a.m. and Bret, my brother-in-law and a neighbor with a cattle trailer are over there trying to capture a totally spooked cow. So spooked, in fact, the big girl, heavy with calf, jumped a fence when cornered.

I am checking out Mass schedules at other local churches. We are not going to make the Mass we'd intended. I daresay, neither will my brother-in-law.

Hardly ever a dull moment here on the farm...

Update (9:40 a.m.): You think things can't get much worse. Now it is pouring out, there's thunder and lightening. My mother called and begged us to pray for the three men who were drenched to the skin and feverishly trying to get the fencing up, as the steers nearly got out. The cow is apparently badly injured--no details on that. The kids and I got on our knees for a Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Bret, of course, just got over pneumonia and Michael, my brother-in-law already has a cold.

Heck of a way to start the New Year!

Update II (11:30): Well, we have just missed our last opportunity to go to Mass today. My mom came by to pick up a thermos of tea and six sausage and egg biscuits I made for the men. She reports that they managed to run wire across the pond (without waders? How the heck did they manage that?) and that they still need to round up Trouble--which is the nickname my mother has given the cow for now. The cow apparently only has a cut from jumping the fence and is calmer now that she's been left alone for a while. And the rain has stopped. Deo gratias.

Update III: Well, Bret did finally get home at 3:15, milked a very full Nuala who had been waiting by the stock tank for him for the previous 4 hours, came in and took a hot shower, ate a hot and early dinner at 4 and then took the kids into Scottsville for Dairy Queen cones. Nearly a nine-hour workday...on a Sunday.