The Cowboy Electrician

Suzanna has a problem heifer. It is time to get serious about getting ready for Dairy Days, and one of her heifers has become rather wild ever since she was turned out into the big pasture. Her two pasture mates are fine about being caught and worked, but not Penny. Suzanna showed her at the spring show and she was okay....not great at leading, but didn't try to drag her across the arena. That was an accomplishment, considering she had only had her for a couple weeks when we headed for the show.

One day when we tricked her into getting caught in a stall in the barn, we put a halter and lead rope on her, hoping that when she was back out in the pasture, we could grab the rope when close enough and then lead her. HA!!! That didn't go so well. The one time we did get close enough to catch her, her favorite direction was reverse. Eventually, she calmed down and I led her around, but she was never calm enough for Suzanna to do it.

So this evening, I suggested to daddy that it would be a good idea to lead Fancy and Sami into the barn and figured Penny would follow. We would leave Penny in the stall and put the other two back outside. Great idea in theory, but how would it play out??

Daddy headed to the pasture with us and when he saw the opportunity, grabbed the lead rope and held on tight.....as Penny began to run across the pasture and him still holding on for dear life. Suzanna, Thomas and I tried our best not to laugh, as he fell, did a full body roll and came back up. All I could picture was him coming up, having made contact with fresh "you know what". Well, he dodged it and the heifer stopped running. He was in the midst of a face-off when Thomas noticed he had lost his tape measure in the ruckus. As Thomas headed out to retrieve it, the heifer took off running again. Daddy was determined not to loose her, and did another full body roll in the process. Once again, he managed to avoid contact with anything messy.

At that point, he decided plan B was a better idea. Suzanna led Sami and I led Fancy out of the pasture and toward the barn. Penny didn't want to get left behind, so she followed and ended up in the barn, caught!!!! Amazing enough, once she was in the barn, she calmed down, let Suzanna brush her and seemed happy with the attention.

The plan is to have Penny spend some time by herself. Suzanna can tie her up a couple times each day and eventually start leading her around in the barn. Hopefully that will make a difference, otherwise Penny will get left home and miss out on a fun week at Dairy Days.

Oh, and the cowboy electrician realized he lost his cell phone out in the pasture during one of his rolls. Of course, he had it on vibrate, because he was driving the tractor earlier and wouldn't have been able to hear it ring. We did a family search and managed to find it within a few minutes. Thank you, Lord!!!