After Brian and cattle

Brain left this morning for the West Coast. He has never seen the ocean in person. While visiting Glacier is nice, we have seen lots of the Park these past five days, and it was time for something new. Besides Saturday Brian has seen a bear (two bears: a grizzly and black bear) to keep alive his 'always seeing a bear in Glacier Park' streak.

So this morning around 8:30 am off Brian went.

Now I need to get back into my everyday routine. This morning I watered much of the garden before it got hot. The plants have grown a lot over the past week. They have much more to go before harvest.

This afternoon was partially spent on catching up on sleep. This evening I checked some of my gopher traps, before getting sidetracked by the cattle.

Saturday morning three of the cattle (Dan's) had made a jailbreak into John's pasture. John is Jim's northern neighbor. Earlier in the morning I had heard mooing but seen some of my cattle in the east side of Jim's pasture, and seen the neighbor's cattle across the river walking up and down the ridge. They moo a lot when they do that.

Jim's wife alerted me to the jail breakers and I ran over with a small pail of alfalfa treats. Jim, John, and John's wife were in John's pasture kinda trying to herd the three cattle to the SW corner and the small gate. Most of the rest of my cattle were on Jim's side of the fence. I shoo'd them away from the gate and opened it. I easily herded two of the jail breakers through the gate. The third one, a heifer, was busy eating trying to ignore us.

I herded the third one towards the gate and she ran past the gate to the corner. The distance between the gate and the corner was a fence post length. She ran and slipped through the barb wire fence. Not gracefully as she was in a hurry to get across. Well... now we know how the three cattle got into John's pasture.

The fence was good earlier but apparently when the cattle put their heads through the fence to eat the "greener" grass on the other side some of the staples fastening the wire to the fence posts came out and the loose wire made an opening to let them slip through the fence.

I offered to help Jim fix his fence but he said he would handle it and for me to go on my planned sightseeing day with Brian. Besides, since Jim would be working on the fence, his brother-in-law then offered to wash Jim's logging truck after he washed his logging truck and this made Jim happy.

Jim had some wire but I gave him some extra barb wire I had. Later he told me he and John worked on the fence and added a few posts to the ones that were bad. He hadn't met John before so this was a way to bond with his neighbor as guys like to bond over doing things instead of merely standing around and talking.

I also learned that John was a "horse" person and not fond of cattle. Hmm.... Sometimes I think horse and cattle people are similar to dog and cat people in their preferences of one animal over the other. Of course horse people are wrong, cattle are better.

Back to today, I noticed that some of the cattle were along the river on Jim's pasture and a few others were across the river. Then I noticed they were and had been across the river across a wider area. That is fine as long as they stay on this side of the fence beyond the trees.

Then I heard mooing on and against the ridge. The cattle hadn't found a way across the fence did they? *sigh* I took my shoes and socks off, rolled up my pants, and waded across the river.

A few cattle were along the river down a bit where the river bank was deeper and looking across to the cattle still on Jim's pasture. Then I heard a loud splash when one jumped into the river and then walked across to Jim's pasture. The other two walked over to their typical shallow wading across spot and crossed the river.

Through and under the trees I followed the trails. I found some cattle and some cattle found me. I walked part of the main fence line and did not see trails in the tall grass across the fence. I also could not see the mooing cattle. I heard a chainsaw on top of the ridge so that sound might have been what was riling the neighbor's cattle.

I circled around and went on the trails to the south. A few cattle heard me and came up the trail to find out who was making the noise. They were nervous as they weren't sure if they were in trouble for being here. The three original cattle had followed me and when they joined up with the new two they all went down another trail.

I went on other trails through the trees and tall grass. I found quite a number of other cattle in a clearing they had found. I couldn't count them as the grass was taller than me and them. It was dusk and I decided to let them be. They knew how to get back home. Or so I thought.

I recrossed the river. The cattle on the part of the land between the two-strand fence and the river were now making their way onto Jim's main pasture as I was there. To do that they had to cross down then up across a muddy spot. They didn't like to do so as they sunk a bit into the mud and had to pull their legs out of the mud as they walked.

One heifer so disliked the mud that she leaped across the muddy section. It was amazing as I never seen cattle do that. It is one thing for a dog, cat, or human to do that, and quite another to see a 700+ lb heifer do that. The other cattle couldn't "fly" like the one heifer but they attempted their mini-leaps.

The other cattle I had seen in the tall grass were now on the river bank across the river - but across from the border between Jim's and my pastures. One (not sure if a steer or heifer) walked across the river to this side but Jim's river bank is steep and it walked around and around in the river looking to get into Jim's pasture. Other cattle stood on the other river bank and watched before following. The river was deep and at one point the initial one turned around. By now several others were walking across the river as they were either getting tired of waiting else thought this one had found a route.

The initial animal then came in my direction where the river bank was shallow but between me and her the water got deep. I couldn't tell if it was swimming or if its feet still barely touched the river bed. It made it to a "mud bar" and climbed on it. By now the other cattle had found a spot on the steep bank where they could pull themselves up and all but two did so. The one on the mud bar did not want to cross the water/mud to get to the shallow bank where I was and turned around and then followed the others up the bank.

Two more were wandering around my river bank as they apparently didn't want to pull themselves up that bank. The problem was my bank was steeper and I had fenced it on top. They crossed back to the other side and re-looked at their options. Then they came across again and pulled themselves up onto Jim's pasture.

That wasn't all the cattle. I walked Jim's river bank looking for the others. Back at the property boundary I saw the others across the river from my north pasture. They could cross over to the shallow river bank on my side but didn't see it as they were focused on Jim's pasture which was "home" and where the other cattle were (though they now left the river area and were in the east end of the pasture). I also didn't want the herd split between my and Jim's pasture and they probably didn't want to be split either.

To get back to the shallow river crossing on Jim's pasture they would have to follow one of their newly created trails back around the bend on the river. That meant going away from where they wanted to be. Darkness was falling. The cattle couldn't figure out what to do.

I went back to the shallow crossing, took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants and re-crossed the river. I followed the trail to where the cattle were until they saw me. Then I returned back the way I came calling out every so often so the cattle could follow my voice through the tall grass.

By the time I took my shoes and socks off and rolled up my pants the cattle were there. They followed me across the river and then waited while I put my shoes and socks back on and rolled my wet pants down. The pants had dipped in my four river crossings and were wet from the knee down. And my socks were wet from being used to dry my feet. One shoe was wet as it had rolled down the bank and into the river one time after I had taken it off. *sigh* So much for keeping dry.

The cattle followed me back to Jim's pasture. Once they saw the rest of the herd at the far end of the pasture they took off running. Fair weather friends.

So it appears the cattle are all together for the night. It was too dark to count them.

All is well until another day. Jim still has a good amount of grass in his lower areas near the river. But you know cattle! Grass is... what? Yup, greener on the other side of the river.