Sunday morning and we woke to what was meant to be a relatively easy day, load up the 4 heifers, then drive them the couple of hrs down Houston way. Well I'm guessing you know how your plans can end up.... so we ended up with a little more fun on our hands.
Before we had the chance to load up the cattle, we got a call from across the road (where we lease a bit of land for grazing), and the steers have gotten out of their paddock and into the yard! We jump on the bikes and race over to get them back in their place. As we're rounding them up to head them through the gate, they instead decide to push through a barb wire fence, at this point its the first time we see them choose the barbs over a nice open gate. We did manage to get them into their paddock, but they wouldn't be able to stay since they've broken out once already - but we still had the delivery to make so the steers would have to wait.
As we're driving along, it amazes me to see how many homes have just been abandoned. Some must be about a hundred years old, others had trees grown up all around them to the point where you almost couldn't even see it! Others still, looked perfectly livable, but its just left there sitting empty. I'm hoping to find a nice day when i can drive down for the sole purpose of getting some pictures of them.
The day went on and we made the delivery with no hassles, it was even fairly simple to find the place along the winding county road.
By now its lunch time and we're getting hungry so we start looking for a place to eat, easier said then done.... the first town (or city as every place here is called) that we drove through we could not find anything! we didn't even see a local diner let alone a fast food place. Onwards we go to College Station, a city so proud of its Uni - I've never seen anything like it. The Uni is Texas A&M, students affectionately known as 'aggies' as we reached the edge of town you see the sign "You are now entering Aggieland". Nearly every building, store or sign seemed to have a link to the uni. Stores with names like 'Aggieland Hardware' even the Dairy Queen where we stopped for lunch had the uni logo nice and big under the registers.
Talking about the Dairy Queen, they are proud to be Texan (at least this one is, I haven't been to any others), with the menu of "Texas favorites" and the option of Texas size. Now I already think that the sizes are big, what they call medium I'd call large, I can only imagine what Texas size will be!! Maybe one day before I leave I'll have a big enough appetite to warrant ordering it.
The rest of the afternoon, until we got back to the ranch, was relatively uneventful. I did find it interesting that the trolleys at H.E.B had cup holders.....after a quick detour due to an accident on the highway we were back at the ranch and stuck right into the work.
Back into it and first up is tagging the new cow we got on the weekend. Simple, it's what happens next.....
Since the steers were now prone to busting through/over a barb wire fence, we needed to bring them back to this side of the road. Thats fine, we'll just empty this paddock and then we can bring them up the road and straight in easy! no. As we round up the calves in this paddock, there's one particularly listless and sad looking calf. Poor little thing is sick, so the rest get put in the pens, and this one we walk into a separate pen so we can give her some medicine. (a day later and she's doing ok, a little sad looking still)
Now that these guys are secure (or so we thought) we head across the road to get the steers.
As Sara and I came up to them she saw one cross the barbwire fence, leaving us 6 to get home. For now at least, they choose to turn and not crash into the fence.
Without too much trouble we managed to get them on the road and heading in the direction we want, for a while at least. They like to go along in the gutters of the road, and press along the barb fences. So as we are encouraging them to get out they go through it. How many times can they do this?? Since there was just one in there, we press on with the intention to come back. These steers really aren't too smart, as we're sending them around the corner they choose the neighbours driveway as a better option.... yeah these guys are really starting to tick us off.
So in we go to round them up, and they are just not going were they're meant to! So when they finally come out of the driveway (ahead of us) they turn back the way they came from. *sigh* we race down and get ahead of them, and manage to turn them, but what do they do when we get to that same section of barbwire fence? yep they go through it.
attempt 2. I wait this time on the road, ready to head them off if they go the wrong way. But this time they really are harder to direct, so eventually we lost the light, having to leave them there. Which will be a couple of days seeing as the next day is forecast with pouring rain....
We head home. To a sight we were not expecting.... the calves we moved so we had a place to put the escaped steers had escaped. Trampling the garden Sara had spent the afternoon digging, planting and tending to! More rounding for us, luckily they were pretty good and easily went in. This time we double checked their gates before we left them.
We get a chance to go in and sit down. *whew* it was a BIG day. Finally we can unwind and settle down to a nice (albeit, very late) dinner.
Monday will be interesting as we place catchup with the chores in the rain.......
