Oscar is Trapped

We have been feeding our stray cat Oscar for almost two years now. Oscar has some serious demands for a stray cat. No dry food, canned food and table scraps only please. Oh, and be sure you don't get within fifty feet of him while he is eating, or any other time for that matter. 

We have complied with Oscar's rules all this time. Recently we noticed he was holding up one of his front legs on occasion but walking normally most of the time. Last night he was walking on three legs when he came to bang on the door and ask for dinner. I told Jason it was time to take action. 

This morning we purchased a live trap. This afternoon we prepared for Oscar's evening visit. We set up the trap and put two cans of his favorite food in the trap. I didn't think Oscar would get within 100 feet of the trap. Thus I was pretty amazed when I heard a ruckus and looked out the back door to see Oscar desperately trying to find a way out of the trap. 

We put a towel over the trap and that calmed him down a little bit. Tomorrow we are off to the vet. I guess we will also find out if Oscar is actually a boy. We have a bad habit of naming stray animals and being very wrong about their gender. Our fainting goat Miss Lyle is a perfect example of that. We had to add the "Miss" to her name after we realized he was, in fact, a she. Please think positive thoughts for Oscar and his leg. 

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Oscar the stray cat. Picture taken about 18 months ago

Cocomo and Lofty

Norman and Cuffie

Dutch, Taco, Murphy and Renny

Donovan, Largo and Rubrico

Clayton

Oskar and Kennedy

Walon

Lighty, Sebastian and Sam

Fabrizzio and Remmy

Sunday Stills

Calimba, Dolly and Cuffie

Lily

Cinnamon

Norman, Silky and MyLight

Maisie and Traveller 

Lighty and Mick

Grand, Leo and Elfin

Elfin and Trigger

pretty sunrise

Jo, Mina and Miss Lyle hanging out

I think it is safe to say that Miss Lyle is ready to start shedding

Rubrico and Largo

Africa

Rubrico and Kennedy

Cow (mis)Adventures Continued

For anyone who missed part one of our Cow (mis)Adventures you can find the post here.

I ended the first post with three cows laying around by the pond. Three cows that normally can  hear a grain bucket rattling from a mile away laid there staring at me as I shook a grain bucket about six inches from them. I continued to stand there and shake the grain bucket with more and more enthusiasm desperation.  I was the very definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over while hoping for a different result.

Jason came driving up in the truck and took the scene in for a few moments. I kept shaking the grain bucket. The cows kept laying there.

Jason decided to take matters into his own hands and got out of the truck. He walked up to one of them and got right up in her face and started clapping his hands and telling her to get up. She did finally get up.

And immediately began hustling off in the exact opposite direction of where we needed her to go. Of course the other two cows immediately sprang up and followed her lead. Suddenly they were full of pep and energy and we stood there watching them hoof it with enthusiasm farther and farther away from where we needed them to be.

I glared at Jason. He held his hands out in front of him and said "I never dreamed they would go in that direction."

I lectured  yelled at Jason for a moment about how he should always, always, always follow my directions when it comes to the cows.  He did have the good sense to agree with me that when it comes to cow handling my skills are superior to his.

I hiked further out into the pastures and approached the cows again. This time I dumped some feed on the ground. The cows stared at me suspiciously for a few minutes. Then they stepped forward a few feet and began to eat. I moved forward a few feet and repeated the procedure. We began slowly and painfully inching our way across the farm a few feet at a time.

After a few rounds of eating feed off the ground one of them began eating out of the bucket as I held it. This was more like it and our progress sped up a little. I ordered kindly asked Jason to drive to the alley and close all of the gates that went in and out of it except for the entrance.

As Jason drove off suddenly the pet cows forgot about their shyness and they all three wanted to come right up to me for grain. I started walking faster and faster, then moved on to a run, and finally a sprint while holding the bucket behind me as I headed for the alley with three cows barreling along with me.

I must have made quite a sight sprinting through the pasture with three cows as Jason was watching me instead of following my directions. I screamed at Jason to stop staring and get the gates shut now.  A few moments later I sprinted into the alley just barely keeping ahead of the three cows. Once we were in I threw the bucket down on the ground and pole vaulted over the fence without the help of a pole. Jason shut the gates at the end of the alley and I stood there gasping for air.

After I took a minute to recover Jason and I walked behind the cows shooing them down the alley. Once we got close to the cattle corral I began putting feed on the ground again, inching them closer and closer to the first part of the loading chute. Amazingly we got them in the first part of the chute and shut in with minimal effort.

I began moving them ahead with little piles of feed, and before they knew what was happening we had them shut into the second half of the chute. There was nowhere for them to go but on the trailer now. After a few minutes of drama the one we were most worried about loading hopped onto the stock trailer. Jason slammed the center divider in the stock trailer shut and she was on.

How did I end up in here??

Now we just needed to load the two "easy" ones. We kept them shooing them forward but they would walk right to the edge of the trailer and stop. Then they would back up to the gate and we should shoo them forward again. We repeated this scenario a few dozen times. The two cows were starting to get really agitated and were seriously considering trying to jump out of the chute. They watched me pouring feed into the trailer but they didn't care, they weren't going in there.

Jason and I decided we would stop trying to force the issue and wait them out, or at least get them calmed down enough to stop thinking about trying to go over the walls of the chute.

Five minutes passed.

Ten minutes passed.

Twenty minutes passed.

Thirty minutes passed.

I asked Jason if he wanted to go get lunch or something. He said he was worried they might try to do something really stupid while we were gone. So we kept waiting and watching and waiting and watching.

Ten more minutes passed.

Twenty minutes passed.

Thirty minutes passed.

Forty minutes passed.

the standoff with the trailer lasted a looong time

The two cows kept going forward and back, forward and back,  in the 10 foot chute. Poor little fat Apple was so nervous and scared her sides went in and out and in and out as she breathed rapidly. Both of them pooped and peed so many times I was amazed there was any urine or fecal matter left in them. Yet it kept coming out.

Ten more minutes passed. Jason and I both picked up sticks and decided we were going to try and drive them in one last time. Both of the cows stood at the edge of the trailer refusing to get on. They could have cared less about us yelling and waving sticks and making a fuss. One of them squirted out more manure and somehow Jason wound up with it all over his hands.

I said to him "why don't you walk to the house and wash your hands and I'll wait here."

Jason said "I think we should consider giving up soon. They are both terrified, Apple especially, and they've been refusing to get on the trailer for almost two hours."

Just then we heard some movement and suddenly Apple loaded herself onto the trailer. Apparently this made Jason snap because he began acting like he was possessed by a demon and scared the red cow so badly she literally launched herself like a rocket into the trailer. We slammed the door shut.

We both leaned against the trailer panting like we had just sprinted to the finish line of a marathon. As we leaned against our rocking trailer we discussed the fact that it wasn't loaded correctly. One cow was in the front half and two in the back half and it should be the opposite. We decided we were just going to drive slowly and have my mother follow us. It was really the only option we had.

Jason decided to add some more air to the tires since we didn't have the weight distributed ideally and then we were on our way.

I happy to report that the cows, the truck, the trailer and ourselves made it to our farm with no further drama or trouble. We drove right into the pasture and opened the door of the trailer. The cows unloaded themselves and began slowly walking around to check things out.

unloading and checking things out

The horses in the three pastures that could see the cows proceeded to practice their dramatic acting skills. They stared, they ran off, they came back and stared some more, they ran off. The horses finally tired of it after awhile and went back to their usual activities.

Lotus and Romeo

Faune, Cocomo, Lofty, Donneur and Flyer

OMG everybody run!!

We had more of the same in the next pasture. Bruno, Duesy, Hesse, Walden, Fabrizzio, Merlin and Remmy. Apprently if you all stand clustered together and stare at the aliens it is a little bit safer.

Eventually everyone got used to their new sights and the horses don't care when they look across the driveway and see the cows anymore. The cows have also settled into their new home.

Cow (mis)Adventures

Yes, it was painful to even type out that title. For any of you who don't remember the origins of the (mis)Adventures I present to you:

Donkey (mis)Adventures part 1 and

Donkey (mis)Adventures part 2

Jason and I were so scarred by the experience of moving Sparky it took us almost 18 months to convince ourselves to move the last of my Dad's remaining animals to our farm.  For 18 months I have been telling Jason that we needed to get the "pet cows" moved. The pet cows were my dad's little group of cows that he chose to keep instead of sell through the years. The most well known pet cow was Buster who sadly passed away this summer. His mother Beulah preceded him in death a little over a year ago. That left us with only three pet cows to move.

The week before Thanksgiving we parked the stock trailer in the cattle corral at my mom's farm. We wanted the cows to get used to the sight of the trailer for a couple of weeks and then get them moved. We had both legitimate and manufactured reasons not to move them for the last two months. Finally we decided this week that we were going to move the cows, or at least try to move them.

As Jason and I drove to my mom's farm we didn't talk a lot. I was cautiously optimistic that we wouldn't have too much trouble getting them at least into the loading chute. After all they were used to being fed grain in there through the years. Jason on the other hand was convinced that we weren't going to get them within half a mile of the cattle corral. Carter was beyond excited about going to move the cows. He babbled non-stop about the cows as we drove to my mom's farm.

Once at the farm we set about getting things ready. We needed to put up a couple more corral panels, check the trailer tires since the stock trailer had been sitting at my mom's for two months and generally make sure we were well prepared.  While Jason wrestled with a couple of corral panels I looked around for the cows. As I looked around for the cows I had so many thoughts and emotions.

Jason always get the hard jobs on these occasions

checking the trailer tires

It was depressing to be moving the last of the animal collection from the farm. All of my memories of the farm revolve around it being a happy place, teeming with life and filled with my parents' collection of wayward animals and my horses. As I scanned the pastures I finally spotted the three pet cows over by the pond and I was struck by how empty and lifeless the whole farm felt. I couldn't stop the tears.

I was sad about all the memories that will fade over time, as most memories do when they are crowded by new ones. I was sad that my dad was gone. I was sad that my mother still struggles at times to accept that he is gone. I was sad that so many things have had to change so much since my dad's passing. And I will admit I was a frustrated that 2.5 years after his passing I'm still dealing with all that my dad left behind at the farm. All of the machinery, equipment, tools, animals, insane amounts of ham radio stuff . . . everything.

What was once my happy place is now a constant obligation, responsibility and source of additional work that I don't have time for. My mother doesn't have the knowledge or background to deal with it all and my sister lives a few hundred miles away, so it has all largely become my problem. And of course by default Jason's problem. It should go without saying that I feel guilty for having these feelings, nonetheless they are there. So I was a mix of sadness, guilt and feeling sorry for myself. The perfect frame of mind for loading three cows who have never been on a trailer and definitely weren't planning on packing up and leaving their lifelong home that day.

Poor Jason. He saw me crying and asked what was wrong. "Nothing, I'm fine."  He stood there frozen with no idea what to do. I managed to spare him from full on sobbing tears and pulled myself together. I started hiking out to the pond with a bucket of grain in hand. Normally all we have to do is shake a bucket of grain and the pet cows come running. Except on moving day of course. On moving day they all just laid by the pond, none of them would even stand up.

I shook the grain bucket. The cows stared at me, unmoving.

I shook the grain bucket some more. The cows laid there, blinking at me.

Unfortunately this post is getting long and I'm running out of time. To be continued . . .

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Donovan and Rubrico

Rip, Thomas and Leo

Griselle, Sparky and Timbit

Merlin, Fabrizzio and Walden

Maisie having a tough day

Merlin and Slinky

Cocomo and Lofty

Alex, Mick and B-Rad

Sunday Stills

Apollo, Hemi and Thomas

Levendi, Moe and Trigger

Cuffie and Maisie

George and Silver

Renny and Mick

Walon and Stormy

Alex and Taco

MyLight and Calimba

Chance and Leo