Not the most fun of days

First, I had a dental visit.  Wednesday's lunch resulted in a tooth problem.  I thought a large filling had broken or chipped off near the gum line on a molar.  The toughest food item I ate was broccoli.  The $86 dental visit discovered a small piece of the tooth had broken off up there.  Apparently fillings don't flex and over time due to stresses of eating, and expansion and contraction from hot and cool items, large fillings can cause fractures and breakage on a tooth.

The fix: a crown.   After removal of the large filling and building up the tooth to support the crown.

Toss in a dental exam and cleaning, etc. since this is a new dentist.  (I haven't been to a dentist since 2003?  2004? 2005? and my previous dentist may have retired as I can't find him.

Cost: over $1500. 

Yah. 


Then my bicycle needs a new freewheel.  I bought what I thought was the correct item but when I got home I discovered that I had forgotten I changed a wheel last year when the rim broke and the new wheel does not have the same type of freewheel.  And I don't have a tool to remove this type of freewheel.

After the crown-prep dental visit tomorrow, I will have to visit the bicycle shop again.


Then in the evening... my neighbor Wyatt came over.  A bunch of cattle were on his property down by the river.

*sigh* 

So I had to herd 15 head of cattle back home through the trees and tall grass.  Six of the herd were still in my pasture so I couldn't leave the gate open.

The cattle were pretty calm.  I brought some grain in a bucket but that didn't interest them too much.  They milled around me but wouldn't follow me.  I start to try to herd them but then a deer ran off and the cattle got excited by my herding and the deer and ran back to the river.

I was able to herd them through the trees over halfway to the pasture before they came out of the trees to the grass.

The grass was tall but the cattle headed on their own towards the pasture.

Then they stopped.  I had to herd them until they got close enough for them to see the six cattle still in the pasture.

Then I herded them along the fence to the gate.  The gate is a small four to six width.  In the past I had trouble getting cattle to actually go through this gate.   The only trouble I had this time was that the six cattle wanted to come out while I tried to herd the 15 cattle through the gate.  The cattle started to get agitated and then three of them made a break away from the gate.

Wyatt was helping me herd by driving his truck in the background.  He cut off the three cattle and turned them around while I got the rest of the cattle through the gate and way from the gate inside the pasture.  Then I went back and herded the three cattle through the gate.

The cattle once they were back in the pasture.  They were calm and followed me across the pasture until I left it and returned home.
 

.

While I was hot and sweaty from herding the cattle - and itchy from walking through the tall grass that is beginning to release their seeds and pollen - I had to figure out how the cattle got out of the pasture.

The answer: the cattle went from the island across the river to Wyatt's property.  The simple fence I had maintained on his property had eroded in a few spots from the high water this Spring and fallen down.  Even though the cattle have plenty of tall green grass in the pasture, the spot where the fence fell was enough for the bored cattle to get an itch to go on a trip.  Before it got dark I laid a bunch of dead tree branches at the spot until I can do a better job tomorrow of fixing the fence.