My face is sunburned and my farmer's burn will be a farmer's tan in a week. I put the boys in bins for a trip to the farm about 11:30. Got home after 9. My sweet roosters live on the farm now. They can crow all they want but their days in the luxury of the poultry palace are gone. This winter there will be no heat lamps for the boys, and while I put up some screens to block the worst of the sun, no fans. Still they will live a decent chicken life and I can visit them whenever I want to.
I have very good friends but Bea is an exceptional friend. A very good friend will take you to pick up your car or help paint your house. An exceptional friend will take your roosters. Phyllis is now Dr Phil and has three little hens and a bunch of wild turkeys sharing the same enclosure. They were hatched from eggs that were almost crushed by a hay bailer. They seem to calm right down when Dr. Phil walks around with them. Goldie has his own three hens in the turkeys old enclosure. He's still a sweet guy who sits on my shoulder and pecks around at my feet when I go to visit.
So we were going to do afternoon feed and go to the ol Hickory Notch for dinner but on the road back to the highway we met some folks wondering if Bea was missing a bull. She was. You know bulls are BIG--and Black Angus bulls are VERY BIG. Seems Romeo went to see what was on the other side of the fence. Took a bunch of folks and the rest of the afternoon to get Romeo contained so he wouldn't wander onto the highway or somewhere he wasn't welcomed.
An animal who doesn't know most of the people running after it isn't likely to cooperate. After Bea chased him through the woods for a mile or so, Romeo was corralled with a bunch of cows on a lady's property up a narrow dirt road. One neighbor went to get the truck to haul the trailer. One neighbor stayed with Romeo to make sure he stayed put. We went back to get the trailer and some fencing that Bea keeps around her truck to keep the goat off. With all of us folks Romeo didn't know waving sticks on the perimeter, Bea herded Romeo through a makeshift chute made from that fencing into the trailer. How the neighbor got that huge trailer up that road bordered on miraculous. He did tho and got it turned around so that one VERY big, VERY hot, VERY thirsty bull loaded up safe and sound. He was happy enough to drink gallons of water and munch on the hay we tossed in for him while I kept Bea company checking out the fence line just at dusk--didn't want the other 26 cows to go walkabout. All cows safe and accounted for and the gate to the back pasture shut. Romeo spent the night in the trailer and first thing next morning with the help of a neighbor--the neighbor who drove the trailer, he got where he belonged.
Romeo's happy to be back home. Bea was covered with seed ticks--she was the one chasing through the woods and in the tall grass. A week later her ankles are pretty much healed up. The gate is still shut since she hasn't had time to walk the fence line in the back pasture. She also said one of the neighbors--the neighbor who followed the bull and stayed with him while everybody else went to get the trailer-- had a heart attack on Labor Day. She took a card up to his house--you know--a "thinking of you" card-- but the lady that answered the door said he'd died.
No comments:
Post a Comment