Leave them alone…and they’ll come home, wagging their tails behind them? Sometimes…

Yesterday’s lush green summer pasture has given way to today’s three inches of snow. Alberta has a way of changing her mind with little to no warning. Walk inside the house in the evening wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, then return outside the following morning with a snow shovel clutched tightly in your hands. That’s how we are unceremoniously introduced to the final day of fall ‘round here. And yes, some of us hate to give in too quickly, we grudgingly pack that snow shovel out, for sure. But we do so in a pair shorts and a T-shirt! As you probably guessed, this never lasts. Mother nature will win that argument 100 per cent of the time.

Before long we’re pack inside to put on some weather appropriate clothes. Eventually we emerge; snow boots cinched on, overalls buttoned up, fingers crammed into mitts, toque pulled down tight, and all of this topped with a deep-creased scowl.  And I have to say, that scowl becomes deeper and more pronounced with each passing year.

The quick change in the season has made what little grass we have in the pastures difficult for the cows to eat and the water hard to drink.

With this change, Mother Nature has told us it’s time to bring the girls home from pasture. I say girls, but I’m including Ed in that group as well.  He’d get rather lonely spending the winter out there by himself. Being alone is not something he’s any good at.  So tomorrow, providing we have enough hands on deck we will walk the cows the short trip down the road from the summer pasture to the winter feed yard.  Soon Topsy, Turvey, Ruby, Ed, 64T, White Number 5 and the rest of the gang will all be trotting down ‘old pasture road’ heading to that all too familiar winter getaway in the small feed yard south of the house.

The path is familiar to all, but of course that doesn’t mean a whole lot to some of the ‘teenagers’.  Come to think of it, some of the grandmas are no better. I’m certain right now they’re all discussing the weather and the trip home just like I am here.  I would imagine they’re pretty eager to get home from summer pasture with the shift to cooler weather.

Leaving things to the last minute, I make a few calls for reinforcements.

As it turns out most everyone is busy for chase day tomorrow. I guess that’s what I get for procrastinating!  It looks like it’ll be just myself and Seamus. No matter, I know we can do this.

With all the portable panels set up along the driveway and strategically placed down old pasture road to plug any tempting looking escape routes, we’re all set for tomorrow. To be sure we did a few trial runs up to the pasture.  First with the truck, then with the gator, and eventually with the tractor and bale.  For each trip the entire herd came running up and stood right up to the gate. There was even a muzzle or two frosting up the top wire with their steamy breath.  As they stood there just inside the gate staring blankly at us.  It only confirmed how easy this is going to be. Honestly, I figured Seamus could just grab a camping chair from the shed, sit down, crack open a beer and watch. There’s going to be nothing for him to do!

Boy, was I wrong.

As always, morning comes too early.  After my morning coffee is gulped down it’s time to begin the move. Our practice runs yesterday went so well I think this will be our quickest chase ever, the cows just seem to be too anxious to come home.

To begin, I take the tractor down the road to the pasture with a bale to lure the cows through the gate. They’ll be quite hungry with all the snow laying on the pasture and will be more than happy to follow that bale down the road grabbing a bite now and then from their slow-moving lunch cart.

I’ll drive in reverse down the road very slowly and they’ll calmly walk, following me as I back the tractor all the way home. That’s my job.

For Seamus’s part, he’ll park his truck at the end of the driveway across the main road. It won’t be needed, but if by chance a cow does plan to miss the turn, Seamus and his truck should help to provide her with an easy, guided right turn straight south onto the driveway.

Once in the driveway the girls just need to follow the panels right to the pen. We didn’t have quite enough panels for a solid fence, but the gaps are small, hardly noticeable. The cows will be so focused on chomping hay they’ll just follow the food right into the winter pen.

So that’s the plan: Walk the herd down the ¾ mile of dead-end country road from pasture gate to winter pen. Voila, simple.

Parked at the pasture gate with the hay bale, I climb down from the tractor and open it, being sure to swing it as wide as possible. Taking my seat back in the tractor I notice they are all just standing there watching me, not taking a step.

They mustn’t realize the gate is open. Slowly moving the bale right up to them I try to entice them to reach out for a bite or two. After a time, some do begin to nibble. Before long I have a good lot of them pulling long strips of hay from the bale. Waiting patiently, I let them get comfortable eating from the bale.

As time inches forward the cows begin to muster around the hay.

At about the half-herd point I begin letting the tractor slowly roll down the road toward home, bale following tractor, and cows following bale.

Suddenly, the lead cows bolt towards home, shooting past the tractor at a pretty good clip! The cows that hadn’t made it onto the road yet turn on a dime and bolt back to the pasture at top speed!  The pasture bunch spread everywhere! North, South, East, West, and directions without description. You’d have thought a canon had just exploded! Before long all I see are horns and tails disappearing over hill, dale, and brush. Behind me there’s a stretched out trail of cows heading toward Seamus at ‘ludicrous’ speed. In front of me cows taking to every pasture trail available. Cows are everywhere. I can’t help but sense the cow chasing plan is starting to unravel.

Ok, so the good news is we at least have some of the herd heading the right direction.

We’ll concentrate on those. Going quickly in reverse I’m soon backing towards the cows heading home down the road, bale still clamped tightly in the loader. Well, at least they’re making good time!  I can see the truck is across the road as planned. Seamus is standing at the front bumper to help guide them the right direction. In front of him is the ditch which follows along the neighbour’s fence line. As planned, the cows turn and thunder down the driveway towards the pen.

There are a few stragglers though, and as I approach it doesn’t look good.

White Number 5 has always been a bit of a high-stepper. And for whatever reason she has decided to not turn with the others. Instead, she’s stopped, and looks to be interested in getting to know Seamus a bit better.  With her neck stretched, ears at attention and eyes completely bugged out she watches Seamus with keen, almost predatory interest.

He takes a step closer “Shoo!”.  She takes a step closer. I’m still a bit away but even I can recognize a Mexican standoff when I see one. You can almost see each of them calculating.  Seamus figuring out just how many steps he can take from that truck door and still be safe. And her begging him to just ‘take one more’. She’s certain just one more and she’s got him. She’s way too high strung. I’ve always felt she was a bit of a carnivore, this is sort of proving it. I’m sure at one point I saw this message bubble appear above her head holding a steaming roast chicken in it while she glared!  She wanted Seamus, and she wasn’t ashamed of letting us know it. Eventually I got close enough with the tractor to put pressure on her to move down to the pens. She’s not interested. Against the logical open pathway she darts.

The chase is on. Cow, then truck, then tractor.

The pursuit continues back and forth past the driveway countless times. Eventually we get her heading back towards the pasture. We decide to leave her be, as we’re confident she will find the rest of the ‘cow rebellion’ still hiding at pasture. It’s time for us to focus on the ones that did start the right direction towards the pens. Of course, when they didn’t see us follow them down the driveway they slowed just enough to find the small hole we could not plug. We arrived to find them standing on the snow covered garden spot watching us.  The good news is they were standing next to the fence they needed to enter. With a little coaxing, they followed the fence and through the open gate into the winter pen. We had them.

Now to make a long story short, the bunch we had in the pen were mothers and unfortunately not all the calves followed from pasture. So, as we sat at the table devising our game plan to chase the rest of the cows home, those mothers decided to push through the gate.  Before long we were standing there, looking west and watching the tail end of their bust-out. Off they trotted, all the way back to pasture. We were now about 4 hours into our chase and were basically back to the beginning.

I was starting to think I may have been overly optimistic in my herd time calculations.

As we continued our cow chase that afternoon and into the next day we finally succeeded by chasing some home and then building a small temporary corral to trap and haul the rest. We did this, but not before mixing a few calves with the neighbour’s herd, breaking a fence or two and abandoning the queen’s English completely.

At the end of it all and during our celebratory drink, it was decided that we need to do a few things different next time.  First we’ve got some fencing to do. Second there are a few cows here this year that will not be here next year. Third, we need to call ahead and get more hands on-deck. I think with these minor changes we’ll have a flawless cattle drive next year. I’m sure I put over a hundred miles on my rubber boots driving these cows ¾ of a mile from pasture.

“Seamus, pour me another!”