Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

About a week and a half ago my freshly weaned calves got to running and tore up a little fence and some of them were in the wrong pasture. No big deal. This kind of thing happens and I didn't mention it here. We got the ones that were out back in and went about our business.

I screwed up though. I didn't go out of my way and count them. I just assumed they were all there. Yesterday we got them in and counted them in preparation to working them. Damn was I surprised. Nineteen of them were missing.

I knew right away that they went missing on the night of the wreck when they got to running. The question was where were they. I right away knew they weren't any where on my place. I had ridden or driven all of my pastures since the wreck and I would have seen a sign of them so I could discount that. That really only left one place they could be. The Padlock Ranch north pasture next to me. Not a pasture I see on a regular basis. I was not looking forward to looking around this pasture. Thirty six sections under one fence. Quite the large, rough pasture.

We started driving around the big north and within a very short time found 11 head of our missing calves. We drove around for a little while longer checking out the south side of the pasture when I decided to let the hired hand get the ones we found in while I drove around looking for the rest. I was looking around the water holes on the north side when I decided to check the corner where the north end of my spring pasture meets my northern neighbor and the Padlock pasture I was in. Lo and behold, I discover that the fence in the corner into Padlock and my northern neighbor is all tore out like my other fence that the calves tore up while running. So now I knew where to find the rest of my calves.

I went back and then we trailered out with horses to where I thought the calves were and sure enough, we found 8 calves in with the neighbors cows and they were all accounted for. We went ahead and cut them out and drove them home.

So here is how it went. Something spooked the calves in their pasture. They ran until they hit the corner probably about a 1/2 mile. They then kept going to the next fence, about 3/4 of a mile and took it out. For some reason at this fence they took a sharp left turn and kept going. About 4 miles later, yes I said 4 miles, they hit the fence on my northern end. Eight of them kept going straight and the other 11 took a sharp left turn into Padlock. How much further they ran then, I'm not sure.

I've had some calves get to running before but never this far and do this much damage. The hired hand thinks a mountain lion was chasing them. I really don't think so. A mountain lion is not a distance runner like this. I think they just ran because they were scared. Not a single calf shows a sign of wire cut or anything else indicating they had run through 3 fences. I do know I wish I was a bird or something watching the whole wreck. It would have been interesting to see.

No one succeeds without effort... Those who succeed owe their success to perseverance. Ramana Maharshi