Cattle into and out of Ruth's field

No baling of my hay today.  This afternoon I checked a few of the windrows and found in a few spots where the windrow was thicker and the hay underneath was still green and a little damp.  Not bad.  I could have baled the hay if I had to, but since the weather is nice, I can wait one more day for the hay to dry more before baling it.

So what did I do on Labor Day?  Saturday, after Donna baled some of my hay, and before I had started to put the bales into my barn, I had let the cattle in the south and middle pastures into Ruth's field to my south.  

Here is a 1 minute 1 second video of the cattle heading into Ruth's field.  https://youtu.be/DWA0Gyvp8Mo

There was a little grass to eat in her field.  Ruth's apple trees have dropped lots of apples into her backyard.  Instead of getting buckets to haul the apples home for the cattle, after I let my cattle into Ruth's field I tossed the apples over the fence into her pasture.  That was easier.

This morning I saw cow #8 briefly fight with Haynes, the bull.  Head to head #8 was pushing Hayes backwards. Haynes must have annoyed #8 earlier.  I think hanging around the cows is starting to make Haynes a little more interested and "active".

After two days, the grass was eaten down well, and this afternoon after getting more apples down the road from Ruth's granddaughter's trees and feeding two large plastic sacks of apples to the cattle, I let the cattle back into my pastures. 

As I walked home the cattle decided to follow me, then go into the middle pasture.  Toby, who for two days has been walking along the north/middle pasture fence and looking over to and calling out often to the cattle in Ruth's field, was happy when the cattle came near the north /middle pasture fence.

In the evening I was in the north pasture and saw the north/middle gate open.  What?!   Donna thinks I overdo locking the gate when I run the chain through the eye hook twice.  It can be a pain to unhook and open my gates locked that way.  Well... the calves love to play with the chain.  Usually double hooking the chain works.  Not this time.  

The calves got the chain out of the catch area on the gate.  Then they pulled the chain and got one strand out of the eye hook.  Then they pulled on the chain another way and pulled it out of the small hole in the gate catch area.  Now I am not sure if the calves then pulled the chain completely out of the eye hook, or if the very windy day pushed on the gate enough that the long chain slowly slipped out of the eye hook and the gate opened partway.  Why I am not sure is that I expected the cattle to be here and there in the wrong pasture.  Especially Toby.  But everyone was in their correct pasture.  No one was near the gate when it opened(?) and didn't realize it became open.

I quickly closed the gate and gain double chain locked it again.

I also noticed the west fence section next to the gate had bent and stretched wire making an open area in the fence.  Toby will put his head and neck through this area of the fence so he can sniff the cows on the other side of the fence.  He had done this on the east section of fence next to the gate - until I put those boards on that section and put a stop to that behavior.  Tonight I re-straightened the stretched and bent wires on this fence section. Tomorrow I will place a board or two on this section of fence.  Toby... Toby... Toby...