Just wanted to report another successful cow move from Mason’s to range today.  Thanks very much to all those who made it happen: Roby, James, Chris, Charlie, Tom T., Jimmy, Lisa, David Omick, and Dave Parsons all helped. Tom Orum and Nancy provided wonderful on-line hand-holding over the past week as the plan was concocted.  And I know there were people rooting for us in spirit who could not participate.

There is a lot of preparation for this day that happens beforehand. Dave Parsons and Charlie spent several days with me replacing a leaf spring, setting up the right size hitches for the new trailer, going to town for parts, and generally getting all the equipment ready to roll. Roby, Jimmy and I checked fences. David Omick helped me check and understand the solar pump and Fenceline Drinker system. Woody patiently answered questions about life, the universe, and everything. Sue made sure I knew where the weak spots were in the fence. And there is putting hay here and there, the salt block, getting water in the right drinker and letting water out of the wrong drinkers, gas in the trucks, letting people know what time to arrive, making sure we have self-inspection forms, and generally getting those ducks to line up!

I don’t really have any exciting stories to tell, but I am just fine with a boring day where everything works. It took a little finagling to get the cows to want to go in the trailers, but when “tempting them with food” didn’t work as well as I expected, Roby tried the “shrinking corral” method so that eventually the trailer was the only place to go! Even then, Little Red Heifer wouldn’t get her back legs up, and stood for the longest time with her two hind legs out and the gate practically closed on them, looking at us as if to say, “And what are you going to do about THAT!”

I think Lisa summed it up well.

I hope you realize that this was a highly successful day.  The cowlings are where they belong, no one (not cow nor human) got hurt and, as far as I know, no one even yelled at anyone.  How could it be better than that?

Thanks everyone. This is the covenant community in action. We all play our part, near and far.