Babies

I got home from errands and discovered four goslings out and about with goose and gander! Good job, Momma, with your setting and hatching!

Shortly after I got home, a knock on the door. Someone stopping to tell me there is a big black bull, ya know, with big horns, running down the dirt road. Oh, thanks!

Hmm, I wonder how he got out. Well, first I'll wonder if indeed it is the bull because all of our black bovines have big horns!

I was about to have lunch but decided gathering the loose animal takes precedence. I scoop some sweet feed into a small red bucket and head out. I first scan the pasture where the cows belong and see the bull, and the cows, and the two young heifers. That means the coming two year old steer is out.

The good news? He sees me and comes a-runnin'!

The bad news? He has no experience of the delightful taste of what is in my bucket (compared to the older cows and bull who come running to anyone with a small red bucket) and so his running in my direction only brings him closer to home but doesn't help him come follow me through a gate or two.

In fact he thinks it is best to run off down the paved road.

So I think it's best to re-think my plan.

Which I do. Fortunately he returned most of the way on his own and decided the grass just outside the upper pasture gate was worth consuming. That little window of time allowed me to open some gates between where he was munching and where he would be inside our fencing, and walk a large circuitous route around him so I could come in behind and ask him to walk forward.

All went quietly and well and bingo -- steer behind fencing again.

I walked him around a few fences until he was in the pasture adjacent to where the other cows were. I opened that gate and stood aside while he hesitated before barreling through the opening heading off toward the bellows of his family.

Meanwhile the sheep came to see if I had some sweet feed for them, and I stood around trying my best to take a count. I counted 14, then 16, then 17, then 15 sheep, so I'll assume there are 17, which is the number I got last time I counted, a couple of weeks ago. They look fat and well, content I suppose would describe them. Unless I stepped a bit too close and their contentedness turned instantly to worry and off they went. I was looking for the older ewe who injured her leg last winter. She is either no longer lame, or no longer among the living. Some day when I can get closer (such as when I do have some sweet feed and they mob me) I will have a better look for her.