Thursday Thinking - A Great Day to Have a Bad Day

Oh man.  You missed it.  We had a catastrophe wreck rodeo circus.  We got three calves.  Calvin spent all day Saturday getting the hot-wire strung and then on Monday the three calves came.  We stood and watched them and waited until the calves nosed the hot-wire, got shocked, and bellowed.  We assumed, wrongly, that they’d leave the fence alone after a jolt or two.  However, within a half an hour two calves busted through the wires and ran and ran and ran (and we couldn't catch them because we weren't the gingerbread man . . . funny how those storybook lines pop into your head randomly when you don't need them).  Argh.  I was still in my dress from work when the calves got loose.  My job was to stay behind to guard the lone calf still in the pasture while Calvin went to find the other two running through the fields.  Mind you, the hot-wire was down so there was no way to really keep him cornered.  I just hoped.  Hope is not enough.  It takes electricity and barbed wire too.  Finally calf number 3 out ran me and now all three were roaming free.  And roam they did.  They easily went a few miles in a short time.  Calvin called a friend who came to help round them up on his four wheeler. 

It was a zoo.  Calves were running everywhere.  Calvin ran through the canal twice trying to outrun them.  Even with the shortcut he lost.  Another friend came to help as did a couple of men from the feedlot down the road.  As I was running from one end of the pasture to the other I thought, "At least the lilacs smell good and it's sunny.  It's a great day to have a bad day."  

After a few hours we got two of the calves back in the pasture and Calvin went right to work at putting up a third hot wire with plans to put in a barbed wire fence the next day.  The two calves were pooped and settled down, so my job of keeping them calm and cornered while Calvin went to town for fencing supplies, was finally easy.  And enjoyable.  I sat on the grass, pulled up my dress, sunned my legs, read a book, and took a few pictures.  

(I took this picture out in the pasture before the debacle)

After the third hot-wire was up and the calves had touched it several times and were leaving it alone, we went looking for calf number 3.  No luck.  He was last seen by the canal two miles down the road, but no one knew whether he was headed north or south, which was critical information.  We couldn't find him anywhere.

Even with all wires hot (and they were hot.  Calvin and I both got shocked hard enough that it made us fall flat—he to his butt and me to my knees.), Calvin was too nervous to leave the calves without a barbed wire fence through the night, so he slept in the pickup watching them. 

In the meantime we just kept praying that we’d find the lose calf.  Calvin and I were both embarrassed that we hadn’t put up a better fence to begin with; we both knew better than to put new calves in a hot-wire for the first time.  Funny how you forgot those kinds of things though (. . . until the minute it happens and then you suddenly remember).  I hoped the Lord would answer our prayer like he did the lady who lost the coin between the cracks of the floor.  I knew it was our negligence that caused the calf’s loss, but $400 is a lot of money to lose in five minutes when you aren't gambling, and I hoped the Lord would help us recover it.  Calvin prayed that the calf would make it back to Roylance’s (our friends and neighbors we bought it from).  I asked him why he asked for that and he said it was easier to answer that prayer than it was to get it back in our pasture.  He had a point, a valid one, and much more practical than mine which was that it would come begging back and get himself back in with the other two (which would mean the fence still wouldn't hold).

The next day Calvin put in a barbed wire fence in addition to the hot-wire.  After teaching, I came home and helped him finish it.  The two calves finally accepted their new home and were content.  We both still felt a bit sick about the lost calf, mostly Calvin worried it would get out on the highway and cause an accident while I am lesser and was sad about losing the money.  There was no way to find it – too many fields, too many coulees, too many calves down at the big feedlot.

That evening Brent Roylance called and said the calf had come back to their place and was in the pen with some heifers.  It was a great answer to prayers, and I've tried to say as many in gratitude as I did in begging.

Next week we get our pigs.