Exercise, Anyone?

We were doing Biology today. B. and I had the microscope out—the new fancy one we bought from Sonlight. The volvox collected from the pond water was twirling around nicely, but something else was whizzing by, so I decided to place the slide in the freezer just long enough to slow him down…too long. Do you know what freezing does to those little guys? Suffice it to say that there was not much left to look at under the ‘scope.

Just then my hubby drove in with a trailer full of cattle. These had been out in another pasture, and although the moms knew where they were, the babies had never been “home”. B. and I stopped school long enough to watch the new little ones get off the cattle trailer.

Well, sort of.

The first calf off the trailer bolted out into the yard instead of into the pasture, so we went running out the back door as fast as we could to redirect the little one.

Not fast enough.

This little one had no idea where she should be going or where mom was, so she ran up and down and through the trees, up through the corn stalks and over the hill. We ran, we got the truck, we called JM home from hunting with the gator, we chased, we watched, we ran along side, we ran in reverse, we ran through woods, we jumped in and out of the truck, we panted. The little one was so tired it would pause to pant and then head out at a trot, again. Finally it began to slow down and we could keep up with it a little better.

We were beginning to wonder if we would catch it before dark; I was beginning to wonder if I was going to be able to keep pushing the clutch down in that old truck any longer.

We finally got all the gates closed along the side of the road and herded her up to that fence line. Hubby and Cub walked her down towards the lane…and then she bolted back across the cornfield again. Gator and truck turned around and headed back up the road and through the cornfield. At last she found the little path that took her into our back yard. We opened gates to the pastures; we chased her in front of the house and behind the house and through the pine trees. And then we chased a cow back into the pasture that had gotten out of one of the open gates. She ran up and down along the fence but turned around every time she got close to a gate.

Then mommy let out a big MOOOOOOO. And baby let out a baby moooooo. MOOOOO. Mooooooo. MOOOOOOOO. Moooooooo. Slowly baby walked towards the mommy moo and at last, into the pasture.

It only took about an hour.

Now which of you said you’d like farm life? I’ll give you a call next time we need some help…

Blessings.

Our Wayward Calf