Excuses, Excuses

I will take any excuse I can come up with to get on a horse. So when My father-in-law asked if I would take the other four wheeler and help move cows I said no.

I would come help move cows if he would give me time to grab a horse though. He had some other things to do so it wasn’t a problem. I grabbed my bridle and some cookies, horse cookies that is, caught Coyote and we were ready to go. I didn’t brush him or anything just hopped on bare back. We were ready in record time.

It’s funny how after so long of little to no riding I feel like my seat is better than it was back when I rode all the time. We galloped bare back through the corn field after those cows and I wasn’t afraid. I had no trouble letting go of his mane to grab the reins two handed and insist that we really did have to stop. I even fell of off the old boy last time I rode. One of those slow motion kind of things. I think he was standing still as I slid to the ground, but it didn’t bother me any like it usually would. Maybe because my falling offs are usually much more dramatic and painful.

It was kind of embarrassing, why does that sort of thing have to happen in front of an audience? An audience of four wheeler guys is worst of all. But I digress, we had a beautiful ride. I am getting pretty good at posting bare back. Those dang four wheelers go so fast I feel like I am holding them up all the time if we walk leisurely along. It doesn’t help that Coyote thinks he is a four wheeler and wants to keep up with his heard. I had to insist that we walk though when I started getting a charley horse in my thigh.

All this cow moving was due to an idea for which my father-in-law is becoming locally famous. He has made two news papers and come Febuary The Farm Journal. Wow.

During a corn harvest already made poor by drought, the wind blew for a couple of days around sixty miles an hour. It blew semies over and caused blinding dust storms that closed interstate 8o. It also blew the ears of corn off the stalks. Dropped the number of bushels harvested by half in many fields. All that corn laying there was too much to let go to waste, but was also to much to turn the cows onto. I had not known that cows could founded just like horses do. Well not just like, cows are ok afterwards they grow long toes and don’t walk very well.

With the sky high hay prices there had to be a way to make use of the corn fields. So husband and father-in-law spent a weekend welding braces to hold electric fence insulators and attache an electric fence to the pivot. The ultumet in rotational grazing. Get it rotational, cause the pivot rotates?

Oh never mind.

Any way.  The whole thing is surrounded by electric fence. Since the field is  round, the perimeter fence is always the same distance from the pivot and a simple gate latch finishes the circuit. The cows are allowed a small sliver of corn laden field. With the whole herd on it there isn’t enough corn for any one cow to get too much. They graze for a couple of days then the pivot gets moved and they have fresh corn stalks.

Brilliant.