Right now we have the weirdest bunch of heifers I have ever had to deal with. All our calves are hand raised from birth on bottle and bucket. They are as familiar with people as puppies and generally act about as tame. However, this summer, the fifteen or so we had turned out on the field behind the house have turned as wild as foxes. They have gotten so they bolt for the back of the farm the minute they see a person. We have no idea if they have been bothered by hunters, pestered by the remote control air planes we have lately been plagued with, or if it is that two of the ring leaders are daughters of a bull we used to have that sometimes threw them a little spooky.

Anyhow, anything we did with them all summer was problematic. This is the bunch from yearlings up to springers, so there were many times when we had to bring in new milkers with calves. Every single time it was like chasing deer. The dogs are old and the cattle aren’t dog broke so using them wasn’t really an option either.

We finally got them down into the cow barnyard the other day, more or less by accident. Liz and I went out at four AM to milk and found the yard full of cow tracks. We finished up chores, hoping it would be light by the time we finished. Of course it wasn’t, so we went looking by flashlights. They were sleeping up on the flats by the woodstove and we just hustled them into the barnyard slick as spit. They were a real pain in the neck there as the guys have to feed through with the tractor and they were always in the way. Then of course last night someone left the gate open and they got up on the lot behind the barn. We had to chase them again. Great fun in the dark with the flashlights spooking them and the burdocks flying.

That was the final straw. This afternoon the whole five of us set out to put the darned things in the heifer barnyard with the shorthorn bull. It was highly entertaining. They decided that the bridge between the farms was haunted and they weren’t going to cross it-no way, no how. It was really cold, the wind was shrieking and it was a plumb lousy day to move nervous cattle. However, eventually they got tired of trying to run over the men and slipped in through the gate where we wanted them. They immediately forgot their worries as the scramble began to sort out a new pecking order with the seven that were already there.

Now all we have to do is figure out how to get the last one, Egrec, down from the hill. She ran back up the first time they got out and she is the wildest one of the group. I have never seen a cow that likes to be away from the herd before, but she actually prefers staying up there alone and cold to coming down to the barn with the rest of the bunch. Maybe when the snow gets deep she will slow down so we can catch her.