Farm life and all that brings

Living on a farm keeps you on your toes, especially when your spouse is the man in charge. The past few days the cows have been getting out and creating havoc. We had to cut off the electric fence in order to get the automatic waterer up and going again, but when there is no juice running through the lines, it is like an automatic green light for the cows to get out, and that is just what they did tonight, and to make things worse, we have been hammered by a winter storm, that was only to last for a few hours. But I guess mother nature didn't get that memo. We have had a convergence zone right on top of Idaho Falls all day, creating a circular motion so the storm just stays put and doesn't move out. We have about 6 inches of sloppy wet snow on the ground and still snowing because of this circular motion.

Well this evening, we got a call that the whole herd was out and over at a neighbors haystack. Never a good combo, they will keep going to that spot, since they know that is easy food. So Chris and I scrambled to get our winter clothes and coats out, we were so unprepared since yesterday it was in the mid 60's.


We found and chased the missing cows and as I was waiting for the cows to get back over the fence, I saw a dark animal a few feet away and was scared thinking it was coyote but I watched it a few minutes and realised that it was a brand new calf, still wet from being born and the cord was still moist. This poor calf was shivering in the wet snow and would have been left behind if I had not looked over the opposite direction of the on coming cows. The mother cow was no where to be found, so I scooped up this calf and carried a few 100 feet and she followed me the rest of the way behind the house until we were with the rest of the herd. Once we got there, her momma found her.

So the good part of is finding and reuniting this new born calf with it''s momma and the bad was, that we spent over an hour looking and chasing the escapees.

But I realized that I am so thankful for our 4x4 Xterra and our 3 in 1 lantern. Driving in the snow was a breeze, even with semi bald tires. Having the lantern made it easier for me to keep an eye on Chris as he chased the cows from one field to the next. Having these modern conveniences made this little event a whole lot easier.