It was a beautiful, tepid, sunny Sunday and we were pulling into our driveway after church when I happened to notice the cows had escaped and let themselves into the back pasture. It wouldn’t have been a big deal, except late last fall, we had a couple ash trees come down and obliterate part of the fence, which would have given them the opportunity to escape. So, it was a quick change of clothes and twenty minutes spend convincing them to go back in where they’re supposed to be biding their time until they’re allowed out on the green grass.
From what we could tell, one cow pushed through a gate and whoever else was still stick in the dry lot panicked and tried to get out, too, because several lines were snapped on the dry lot, too. After putting out a fresh round bale of hay to convince the cows to stay put, we went to the barn and gathered our supplies for a patchwork fence repair.
The cows had obviously been on the pasture long enough that they had full stomachs, because they weren’t particularly interested eating. Instead, they watched with great interest as we restrung lines, fixed the gate, and put up another short line of barbed wire to keep Dolly from literally climbing over the fence. It’s called cattle panel, but it sure doesn’t keep our cattle in.
All in all, it was a pretty quick patch job, though I have a feeling it’ll be a lot more work in the future. The previous owner didn’t keep up with the fencing, which means I’m going to be replacing posts and restringing a lot of line this year. Hopefully that will happen before we’re ready to let the animals out to graze. Horses are easy to convince to stay in a reasonably fenced area. Cows? They could be tripping over green grass and they’ll still be pushing the boundaries, trying to reach a green blade of grass on the other side.
After watching all the hard work that was done to keep them in, the herd decided to either A) take a nap or B) stuff their faces with more food. Sigh. Never enough for them.
There was no ox in the mire this Sunday for us, but a herd of cattle prematurely on a pasture was basically the same thing.
Adding fix fence to my spring to-do list.
