Yesterday was our big cow move off range, which we made this year by shifting the herd from the Fenceline Drinker to the Lower Drinker, then walking the whole herd from the Lower Drinker the mile-and-a-half along Cascabel Road to El Potrero. From there, we spent the day trailering them one load at a time down to the Mason Pastures for the summer. What I feel mostly today is that incredible lightness of being when something imagined for weeks is done!
With the dry winter and little green feed, the cows have been ready for this move longer than we have. Alex and I got them back across the fence from the Hot Springs Pasture on June 1, and they were already down at the Lower Drinker the next day, camped our hopefully near the gate. I started bringing them hay first thing in the morning to keep them close and let them know what time to arrive on move day. Every day for a week, when I would show up, they would all get up and gather around me and stare, whether I had food or not, wordlessly asking, “Is today the day we get to go to those green pastures??” and I would have to tell them, “No, just be patient!”
Finally, everything was in order. It was Madi’s first time gathering cows on horseback—after working all spring with Sue on her horsemanship—and she and Nick did a great job on Loompy and Nimby. Tom T drove the hay truck, with Alex in the back providing finely-tuned acceleration and deceleration of the herd depending on how much hay he showed them. Lisa and I had a great time walking with the cows on foot, Woody built a beautifully sculpted line of cars along the lane at EL Potrero to direct the animals into the corral, and Bonnie and Kaya and Sue protected the herd by watching for traffic at either end of the road.
The move itself was as seamless as we could hope for. The cows were all at the gate at 7:00, had a snack to prepare for the walk (see video above), then were out the gate at 8:00 as planned. The only minor difficulty was that Mister — one of the calves — had gone to sleep waiting for the move to start and was slow waking up. By the time he got going, the herd had disappeared around the bend and he wasn’t sure where to go. Nick and I had to chase him pretty hard through the mesquite thickets to get him headed away from the only home he had ever known and toward an uncertain future. Once he caught up, though, he trailed along with Mom just fine.
The rest of the move along Cascabel Road was a joy. It is always a thrill to walk or run or ride with the cows—being part of the herd, feeling the physical energy of their big bodies and strong wills, no words necessary to know exactly what is happening as you slip into a flow as elemental as water or wind.
Perhaps the sweetest moment of the drive happened at the end. About 15 feet from the corral, Fluniper suddenly did a dramatic about-face and started a backwards dash. Oh no, where is she going now!! Then we saw that she had gotten a little separated from her two-week old calf who was lagging at the end of the long walk. She stopped stiff-legged as soon as she found him, gave him the sweetest, softest nuzzle with that unique “whuufff” of mama-cow relief and exasperation, and turned calmly back into line. It always amazes me when an animal that large expresses so much gentleness of feeling. And it was also just funny to see her obvious, “Oh no, I forgot the baby!!” expression.
Before the move both Madi and I were worried that the herd wouldn’t fit in the corral—but either the corral got bigger or the cows got smaller, because they had loads of room to spare!
After coffee at Dave’s, the rest of the day was a long, hot slog of driving back and forth to Masons with the single horse trailer on the dirt road which seemed extra bumpy after last week’s rain. One of these years, we need to revive the tradition of walking the herd the whole way between pastures.
Everything turned out well in the end, but it felt like a whole string of little things breaking all day long. The most dramatic was when Madi opened the side door to the horse trailer after load number two and the whole door fell off in her hands!! Thank the stars above and the ground under our feet that that didn’t happen in transit!! I had visions of calves spurting out the side of the trailer one after the other as we drove down Cascabel Road. Turns out one of the hinge welds had broken, which felt like a show stopper at first (with three loads left to go!) but the spirit of Pat Corbett stepped in and we wired the door back on to the trailer with fence wire and finished up the last three loads just fine. Miraculously, everyone staying in good spirits all day, and it never felt like a question that we would finish—somehow! Sometime!
A picture that will stay in my mind for awhile was the last cow of the day—Way Cute—who didn’t want to go in the trailer. She kept stopping and backing up at the last minute, one time forcing Tom to climb briskly up on the fencing on either side of her until it looked like he was riding the big cow like a rodeo rider as she came backwards out of the chute!
At the end of the day, no one was hurt, the cows are in their summer homes, and I got one of the best nights sleep of my life last night! In a day or two I will be looking forward to doing it all over again next year.
