Cattle into the NE pasture

Friday night late I moved the cattle from the yard to the NE pasture.  Most of the yard grass had been eaten down by the end of the day. 

Friday morning I had cut wire sections and nailed them to the four fence sections between the yard and fruit tree area I had rebuilt last year before the snow fell. The area between the rails was large enough the cattle could put their head and neck through to eat the grass over there, and I didn't want them breaking a rail.

In the afternoon I used the tractor to tip the extended corral feeder and then the feeder in the south corral on their side and placed them in a different spot.  Then I hooked up my harrow to my tractor and harrowed the extended corral area, especially the area where the feeder had been.   I never had harrowed the south corral as it is a small area, but I thought I could do the area where the feeder had sat for the last few years.  That area really needed smoothing out.  What made it difficult was that when I was harrowing the extended corral, the cattle came from the yard and stood in the corral, then the south corral to watch me.  They were all in the south corral when I finished the extended corral, so I shut the gate to the south corral so I could drag the harrow into the corral.

I then opened the south corral gate.  I figured the cattle would now want out of the south corral.  No.  Okay... I'll drive the tractor into the south corral dragging the harrow along with me.  Then the cattle will leave the south corral.  Nope.  So I drove around the south corral.  I figured the cattle then would leave the corral, but no. The cattle moved around.  Some in front of the tractor.  Others, and the calves, behind the tractor as they were fascinated by the harrow and wanted to check it out.  I stopped and got out of the tractor and tried to herd cattle out of the south corral.  They didn't want to go through the gate and out of the south corral.  I only got a few to go out.  So I tried dragging the harrow again.  The same thing.  I tried herding them out again.  The same thing.  Over and over.  It shouldn't have taken me long to harrow this same area.  But it did.  As I drove I had to watch and stop so as not to hit a cow with the tractor, or hurt a calf that wanted to walk up to the harrow.  *argh!!*  But I finally got the harrowing done safely.

Then I had to leave as I had chief election judge training and it was getting late.  I was late to the meeting by a few minutes, but wasn't the last person late.

Then in the evening Donna had tickets to go to the PBR bull riding competition and I was a little late meeting Donna as the chief election judge training took longer than I expected.  But we made it to the event on time.

As I was late to leave to the election judge training and the cattle didn't want to leave the corral, I closed the corral gate.  That way I could open the front yard gate and drive out to the meeting.  When Donna picked me up, and we were leaving, I closed the front yard gate and opened the corral gate.  It was dark when we returned from the bull riding event.  The yard grass was mostly eaten by then.  I had a wire fence to protect the caragana bushes in the front yard.  Maria got her head and neck under the wire fence and pushed it up onto her back.  I had the wire fence wired to the steel fence posts but many of the wire attachments were broken or gone due to Maria's action.  I did some yelling at Maria as she was trying to eat the leaves on the caraganas.

So.. the cattle are now in the NE pasture.   Saturday was mostly a rainy day so I didn't remove any of the cattle protections in the yard.  I waited until today.  Again mostly a rainy day.  I didn't want to wait any longer so I worked in the rain.  I got all the protections removed.  When I took the corral panels back into the north pasture, the cattle came into the corral and mooed and mooed at me as I carried each corral panel.  Even though they have plenty of grass in the NE pasture, they wanted to go with me into the north pasture.  That pasture has grass the cattle haven't tasted yet.  My cattle are divas.

I have to put a trap over my well shed roof.  Otherwise the cattle will pull on and tear the roofing shingles.  This year the cattle torn the tarp.  At least they didn't tear the shingles this time.

I put some small fencing to protect the tulips and flowers growing next to the house.  Only one flower at the right end survived.  The cows are obsessed with getting to whatever I try to protect.  At least this time the roll of wire saved this tulip.  The wire section I had at the top of the roll was torn off by the cattle this year, but they cattle couldn't get their head down into the wire roll.  Last year they did.

I was able to save the bushes this year I had protected.   The one bush that got abused was this one.  Usually the cattle don't like eating this bush so I didn't put wire around it to protect it.  This year they had to try eating parts of it before they decided they didn't like the taste.