River walk

Three days ago Toby and Maria decided to go on a road trip that evening. The river level is low now. As I moved irrigation pipes they had walked up the river and were on the river bank across from the north pasture. At the end of the irrigation move they were on my side of the river where my north pasture meets Calvin's field. It would be dark soon and I wasn't going to herd them that evening. Toby and Maria would either walk back to the middle pasture or walk up the river bank and find the gate open from the river to Calvin's pasture.  In case they entered Calvin's pasture I closed Calvin's gate to his driveway and told him.

*sigh*

The next morning Toby and Maria were back with the herd in the middle pasture.  After I finished moving irrigation pipes that morning Maria came down near to the river along with some calves.  We both stood and stared at each other.  I did not trust that she wouldn't walk up river again.  She looked guilty as she stopped and stood and didn't continue walking to the river.  It was like she knew I would be unhappy if she walked up river.  Eventually I left.  Later I seen she didn't walk up river and did rejoin the herd.  I decided it was time to switch the cattle from the middle to the south pasture.  And this would maybe cause Toby and Maria to forget about walking up river.

After only a couple days in the south - their favorite - pasture the cattle showed up in the middle pasture today mid-afternoon.  A few hours later Calvin came over and informed me one cow was in his pasture.  Yup.  It was Maria. She must have walked up river all that way.  I went out and opened the gate to my pasture and she immediately walked through.  I herded her to the NE pasture and put her in there to be with Diamond and Little Beulah.   A few of the other cattle, and Toby, were near the middle/north pasture gate.  Maria's last three calves all lost their ear tags as Maria teaches them to stick their head through a fence and tear their ear tags off.  A calf without an ear tag that looked like her calf was near the gate so I let it into the north pasture and herded it into the corral/NE pasture to be with his mother.

Maria is not happy at being in the NE pasture and she has been mooing off and on this evening while standing at the gate and looking over at the cattle in the middle pasture.  Tough.  You go on a river walk, you then go into the NE pasture.