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.