Cows in the Orchard

In Farm Life, Livestock by Laura CrossleyLeave a Comment

This is a story about why you don’t ever complain about the current amount of adventure in your life. (*Cough, cough, Aaron Crossley, cough*)

On Sunday. While doing seemingly nothing at all, we acquired an ass. Not just any ass. Archibald Crossley I.

We introduced Archie to his new buddies – the goats we own (I’m still entertained this is a thing) – in their new home, the Goat Trails. The Goat Trails are a ridiculously well manicured path through the woodline that leads to the Goat House…which is also ridiculous and epic in its existence.

Thankfully, Chris and Taylor arrived at the opportune moment to bear full witness to all that came next.

The electric fence wasn’t electric. So the goats didn’t think much about staying in it. As we sporadically shoo’ed them back into their pen, I noticed an entire herd of cattle wander up to our own cow pen in the pasture.

As the electric fence didn’t shock and the goats didn’t feel a need to stay contained, we all turned our attention to wrangling the 13 stray cattle.

They approached harmlessly enough near our cattle pen in the East pasture. Then, they wandered to the hay bales stored at the front of the property. Naturally, the grass is greener on the other side of the driveway – so, from there, they ventured into our giant front yard.

As they worked their way up the hill, they noticed us near the barn and chicken coop. Eventually they came to join us. At that point, they were finally able to see the pond in the backyard – so they sprinted to that, too.

After a refreshing slurp, they made their way to the back porch and completed their tour with a return to the cattle pen.

Naturally, as they moved through the backyard – Archie saw them, jumped the fence to wrangle them and the stray goats. And, like that, we had a donkey that was out, too.

Somehow, in the chaos, Aaron and Chris got the fence put back together. They managed to corral all 7 goats into the trailer. And they led Archie to our cattle pen where he made new friends with the 3 Chucks and Big Mama. Taylor – managing all the kids – and I – taking all the phone calls – summoned reinforcements from Dad and Gena down the road.

We still had to figure out how to handle the 13 cattle that had finally found contentment grazing in our orchard.

Isai hadn’t had dinner and had reached his cap on the evening’s fun. We drove up and down the nearby highway knocking on neighbors’ doors in hopes of finding the cows’ owner. No luck. Fortunately, by the time I returned home, the Facebook post I pushed to our local page had gotten some traction and someone quickly messaged that he’d talked to the owners and they were on their way.

True enough – shortly after dark had fallen – the owner arrived with a bucket of grain. Every single one of the 13 cows rallied around him and followed him down the highway and back into their pasture.

We returned the goats to their holding pen in the pole barn and paused for a sanity check as we ate a fast dinner.

“How was that for adventure, Aaron?”

“That was fun.”