If the Cows are Out, It Must be Sunday Morning

 

I don’t know where cows and other livestock keep their calendars.  But I know they must have them.  Because they always know when it’s Sunday morning and all farmers know what that means.  If the cows are out, it must be Sunday morning.

Horses also share the uncanny ability to know when it’s Sunday morning and you are on your way to church.  That’s when they escape, or get a leg hung in the fence, or stick their head through a gate, or find an object to slice open a leg, or birth a foal.   I once had to remove a horse’s front leg from a wire fence dressed in my hose, Sunday shoes and best dress and still managed to make it to church on time.  There is no sleeping in on Sunday when you have livestock.  You have to get up extra early to go on a round-up before going to church.  You can’t just skip church, because you have to ask forgiveness for all the things you have said while on the round-up.

Just last Sunday, I had a couple of escapees from my pasture, not before church, but during church.  My phone was silenced, so I didn’t see the message about it until later, but luckily the round-up had already happened by the time I got home. 

Much of my childhood was spent chasing livestock of some kind.  I remember one time my daddy had a little band of renegade pigs, who ran amuck all over the farm until they were old enough to become bacon and sausage.  No matter where you put them or how much fence repair you did, almost every day we would look out and there they would be – merrily rooting around somewhere they had no business.  He kept his young pigs down in a large holler, surrounded by a pretty steep hill .  Their favorite thing was to get almost to the gate at the head of the holler, then turn around and run straight up the hill between whoever was trying to drive them back.  I think they were possessed.

We had an accomplished jumping calf once.  He could jump out of any fence he found himself in.  One day, he jumped 5 or 6 fences in his attempt to escape.  It was a happy day when he was finally captured and taken to the sale barn.  It’s too bad there was no market for calves with jumping talent.  He could have been the first Olympic champion in calf jumping.

The most expert escape artists I have encountered, however, are my horses.  There are some differences between cow escapees and horse escapees.  Cows usually get out through a hole in the fence, and you would be surprised at how small a hole it takes for even a fairly large cow.  Horses prefer to tear the fence down or open the gate.  If a cow gets out, they will almost always find that spot and go back in, if chased in the general direction.  In fact, if it’s only a single cow or two, they will usually find the spot themselves and return, given enough time.  Horses will never find that spot and go back inside.  You have to catch the horse and lead it to a gate.  For this reason, I have all kinds of rope and halters hanging in various places around the house and yard and in every vehicle.  Several times in the past, I have been out chasing down horses and found myself with nothing to lead them with.  I’ve used a shoelace once or twice, discarded hay string (when you find a stray hay string on the farm, there is an unwritten rule that you loop it around the fence for just such an occasion) , and once, my bra.  Emergencies call for drastic measures.  And, as the saying goes, “anyone who lives near me is sooner or later going to see me in my pajamas chasing horses.”  Especially on Sunday mornings.

Horses can be all the way on the other side of a twenty-acre field and sense a gate chain has been left unfastened.  And they study gates extensively to figure out how to open them.  I spent several weeks yelling at everyone who went through my barn gate that they weren’t fastening the chain back correctly because the horses kept opening the gate every night or two.  It turned out the snap was so worn out that Bullet could use his lips to work it loose.  Who teaches them how these things work?  Once I watched him study an unfamiliar latch at a county fair for a couple of hours.  If I had left him alone any length of time, he would have had it open, no doubt.  He is the only horse I’ve ever had that can open gates that swing toward him instead of just pushing them open.  He can open a gate that doesn’t even swing by draping his head over the top and dragging it toward him until he can squeeze through.  At 28 years old, he has had a lot of time to learn how to open gates.  And he has taught all his tricks to his young red-headed friend, who goes by the unimaginative name of Red.  In addition to gate opening skills, Red has another talent.  He can apparently jump really high.  I say apparently because I’ve not seen him do it.  But many a morning he has appeared on the other side of a fence with no other visible means of escape. 

Someday I might win a million dollars in the lottery.  If I do, I know what I will do with it.  I will build escape proof fences and gates with really good latches.  I may need to make that two million dollars.