Broken Bones & Broken Fences

Here's the thing about having critters, it's the worst. The actual worst. I love them, they hate me. I feed them, they break my ribs. They're bastards the lot of them. After the first days of chaos having Jo home we thought we had it sorted. The yaks were in one area, the cows in another. It seemed to be working and we thought things would settle. Why do we always think things will be okay? They never are. Dylan arrived home one night to the three adult yaks and JoJo in the wrong side of the barn. The human side. Eating the hay we have all stacked up for winter. Bridget, Brisket, Walske and baby Jack were still in the pastures. They are our only good animals, though I'm sure Jack would have also left had he been tall enough to get over the fence shards. The yaks or JoJo had broken the fence, it is unclear who and they will not cave to my interrogations.  Dylan and I had the brilliant idea of blocking them in the barn with our trucks and then just opening the animal side so they could go back within the fences that were still standing. HILARIOUS. We always come up with these plans, in our heads they go smoothly and in real life they are a hot mess of chaos and frustration. Of course as soon as I got near the barn with the truck they scattered. Don't worry guys, I had another brilliant idea. Lead them with oats. How many times do you think it'll take me failing in my oat bribes before I fully and entirely comprehend that they can only be lead with oats when they feel like following? The oat thing didn't work (likely entirely unsurprisingly to you all, though somehow a bit surprising to me at the time). The yaks took off toward the driveway. I carried my bucket of oats, apparently I still had some hope that they'd change their minds and suddenly want the oats. They didn't. Fairly quickly I realized I had gotten myself in a bit of a pickle. Cameron stood in front of me, Mary and Elizabeth to my left and right side, and my tied up bastard dogs behind me. Dylan was down blocking the driveway. I stood there for a moment knowing I didn't really have a direction to go. Towards the dogs and we'd likely have a dog vs yak battle. The dogs would lose. To either side, a me vs. yak battle. I would lose. Forward, same thing. Normally with yaks you carry a large stick, because for some reason they're less likely to attack if you've got a stick, but if you're complete shithouse at being a rancher like I am, all you have is a bucket of oats. I held the bucket out to Cameron he stared at me. Then he lowered his head and I knew he was coming at me. He did. I moved out of the way mostly, so he just clipped me with his horn. It knocked the wind out of me instantly. Fortunately he only came at me the once, then he backed up. Dylan had heard my one or two swears and came up. He had a pitchfork. Somehow we managed to get back behind the yaks and guide them back towards the gate. I spent some time chasing baby Jack around in hopes that he'd start to do his little yell for mom and get them all rushing back. It only kind of worked. Jo and Elizabeth just casually strolled to the broken fence and went back in. I opened the gate and eventually Mary and Cameron sauntered back in as well.
Dylan and I were feeling pretty proud of ourselves. It was all good until the adrenaline wore off and I realized that I was in an exceptional amount of pain. For a day or two I just waited hoping it would get better, eventually I went in to see a doctor. Broken ribs. Endless joy. So now I'm essentially a useless garbage pile. I can't do any of the farm things that need doing. All of this for some entirely ungrateful little jerks?!
Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug. I was the bug this time.
I spent a couple of days being pretty bitter towards the yaks but I have begun to forgive them. Though they are entirely rude, I do have to respect them for being tremendously powerful and majestic animals. They're just animals, just doing their animal thing. I suppose getting an ass kicking is just to serve as a reminder to me to never ever forget that they are more wild than tame and much much larger than I am.  Hopefully I will never again try to boss them around without the proper tools.

"Look at me, I am the captain now"

Things have settled down now though, Jo is staying within the fences and getting along with the yaks. We got our first snowfall that stuck so I guess winter is here now. Next month the sheep go back in with Walske and the herd. Cher have mercy on our souls.
Somedays we still ask ourselves what the hell we're doing and fantasize about selling it all and going back to living in a city. I don't think we're entirely serious about it though. Depends on the day I suppose. Most days it's 70% joking, somedays it's 70% serious.

Some mornings the farm looks so peaceful and lovely when I wake up in the morning I can't help but love it. Even though I know there is immeasurable chaos and frustration lurking just beneath the surface. I have experienced nearly every emotion since we started this journey, joy included. Though I have not yet found endless joy in the way I was looking for it. It always seems to come to an abrupt halt the moment I start to think we've got it sorted.

The Cow Jumped Over The Moon

My girl JoJo is home. Sunday morning I was leaving my house, in a rush to get my nails done. I got to the end of the driveway and knew that I would end up being late. On our road, going past our driveway was a very large cattle drive in full swing. Can you imagine me uttering that sentence last year? For real though, a cattle drive on a sunday morning just casually down our road. no big deal. As I sat in the truck waiting for what seemed like a hundred brown cows to run by me I had to laugh at my new life. I texted my nail lady, " Hey, I'm going to be late, theres a cattle drive down our road and I am behind it." I watched them go by and boom, right there in the middle was a long haired horned black cow. I jumped out of the truck started yelling and waving my arms like a maniac. " THATS MY COW THATS MY COW THATS MY COW" Of course I was yelling at a bunch of running cows and a guy way ahead of me in a tractor, the people at the back hadn't yet come near me. The cows did not care. I was able to get to the people, they laughed a little and said, "yeah we know it's yours we'll bring her back after we've driven them home." I followed the herd down the length of our road before I was able to turn off being so close and yet so far from our girl was an interesting emotional journey for me. I'm sure the seasoned cattle farmers that had our girl found us hilarious getting so worked up about one cow.

This blurry gem is a picture of the cattle drive

JoJo had joined a herd of cows up behind our neighbours property, we had looked through the area she was in, but somehow we had missed her. She had been hanging with their herd since July. The people had asked around about who was missing a highland, but being as we're new to town, and they aren't on facebook they found no answers. Similarly we had asked the few people we know if they had heard anything about anyone finding a highland. We were just one degree of separation from saving ourselves months of agonizing over our lost cow. The couple that found her in with their herd are just as perplexed as to how she got in as we are as to how she got out. They said that they had checked their fences multiple times trying to find a hole where she could have entered but found nothing. They are far more experienced than we are, so I felt a tiny bit of validation.
The lovely couple brought JoJo home to us yesterday. We expected a beautiful reunion between Bridget and Jo. Somehow despite all of the missteps over the past months we have still not learned to expect the worst case scenario when dealing with animals. Instead of a heartwarming reunion and a beautiful display of cow friendship what we witnessed was three yaks and one red highland gang up on our girl. Cameron our bull got a bloody nose, Jo got him right in the face. Jo and Bridget chased and rammed each other for a while. Things started to settle down after a bit and Dylan and I decided to go back to work on our fence. We had barely gotten started when I looked up to see JoJo at the driveway sniffing around our sheep pasture. The sheep were much happier to see her than the bovine bullies. Jo used to be crazy for oats, she was our resident maniac. She has been without oats and humans for months now though, so she didn't care at all about my bucket of oats as I tried to lure her into the sheep pasture. Eventually though we got her in. The sheep all gathered around her sniffing and bleating pretty happily. So at least we aren't the only ones here to be thrilled to have her back.
After about an hour I went to check on the critters, Jo and Bridget were both at the edge of their respective pastures mooing mournfully at one another. Like they longed to be back together. GIRLS, YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE!

Jo's welcome home party

We plan to put the sheep and Jo in the main pasture with Walske, Bridget and the yaks in December, hopefully by then they'll all be settled down and willing to get along. Little bastards.
Jo is most likely bred now, to a red angus bull so it sounds like this spring we'll have a little mixed breed calf. This of course isn't ideal as we didn't really intend on calving next year. We were hoping to wait until we had a better setup and knew more. Hilarious how I always make these plans like I think things will just go according to plan. We had been hopeful that Jo would have had a calf this year, as she had been bred but she didn't. That disappointment was minuscule in comparison to the joy of seeing her back home (on the right side of our fences). I have to start over again in my quest to get her to accept me but that is a small price to pay. I had given up hope that we'd ever know what happened to her. The mystery of the original escape remains unsolved. Sort of, we know she jumped out of the pasture yesterday, it seems our girl is not only beautiful but also a highly skilled jumper. I imagine she got out the first time and into the other pasture with a  few big jumps.

She is beautiful and majestic and I am over the moon to have her home

YALL, I had to pause while writing this blog because I looked out the window and JoJo was standing on the wrong side of the fence against the pasture where Bridget was. This is my actual life.

I coaxed her into Bridgets pasture with apples and oats, so now I have the two Highland haters and Baby Brisket together. Fingers crossed Jo and Bridge can make up and not cause another jump to freedom. She's done two in less than twenty four hours, so the odds are not good. 

JOJO, why must you do this to me?!!??

I've spread oats and apples throughout the pasture in hopes that it will keep them distracted long enough to mend their fences. (pun not intended but not regretted). 

They look so lovely and sweet, but they are making me crazy. 

I'm going to rename JoJo to something more fitting like, "Hell-ga", "Jumping Jenny", or just "Bane" because she is the bane of my existence and also the villain of Goldie Acres. I love her dearly, but she's quickly becoming what will certainly be the death of me. Maybe she's just a city cow, just trying to make her way off the farm where no one understands her and into the city where she can start a new life of champagne brunches with the girls and I am the evil stepmother forcing her to stay on the farm. Maybe I am the villain.