I pondered last night, after a comment from Jonathan that I have not been blogging lately, what exciting thing I could make into a post. It's not that life is dull and boring right now, in fact it seems as busy as always - and maybe too busy for November which I always thought was a rather quiet month. Anyway, most likely due to the cold weather creeping in, the camera doesn't come out quite as often, so there are no new pictures to show. But today brought about an "event" that I am deeming blogworthy.
Today was the day that we booked to say our farewell's to Mr. Cow. Remember him? Cute and clean and quiet.
Well, as usually happens, all novelties become not quite so novel, and responsibility gets transferred to whomever is the most responsible and able and available. . . And Mr. Cow was mostly a joy throughout the summer -oh yes, it's a bit of work to keep things clean and all but hey, I was born and raised on a farm - no big deal!
And then fall came - and rain, and rain, and rain - I don't know if it was more than normal, but when I went out to feed Mr. Cow who of course, by this time has no grass left, I began to feel a little sorry for him. It was rather muddy.
So the push for a butcher date began. I called my mom and dad (who are the recipients of the meat and also provided the cow with his daily rations and whose help we would need to get Mr. Cow to its final destination) "Umm Mom, Mr. Cow is getting cold . ." To which she responds that he probably won't be much warmer in her freezer. And I promptly get a delivery of 6 bales of fresh clean straw. OK. Well then we had the warm spell and things dried up a bit and things weren't so bad. But it did get cold again, and it rained for about 3 days straight and then it was more than rather muddy, it was YUCKY!!! Like my boots would get suctionned in if I dared walk in, which I didn't. Mr. Cow still had his small barn covering where it was dry with straw, but nevertheless living conditions were less than ideal. But we had a date. Oh I also failed to mention that Mr. Cow is no longer quiet either. In fact he moos really really loud. Who needs an alarm clock when you have a cow. We also just got new neighbours whom we haven't met yet, but whom i worry are annoyed by the noise level over here. Jonathan says I worry too much, but that thing is LOUD!! and incessant. And yes we do feed and water it.
So that brings us to today. Butcher day. My dad was going to come in the afternoon to pick up Mr. Cow. So trying to be helpful, I thought I would get Mr. Cow out of his pen so we would not get stuck or fall in his mud pen. So with the help of the boys, we got a rope around his neck and eventually lured him out of his pen. The other end of the rope was tied to a tree. It was a long rope, but not so long as it seemed when Mr. Cow started running behind our hedge. Really I didn't think that rope was that long. Well you can guess - it wasn't. And I had a cow who had been penned up for appoximately 6 months on the loose. NOT GOOD!!!! Apparently I don't know how to tie properly or something. I never did graduate from cadets. So the chase began. I made a mad dash into the house where Kevin had migrated, yelled for him to help me, and grabbed a scissors to cut my rope a reasonable length. And then I ran. And ran. And began to panic and imagine my cow hit by a transport truck (we live on a pretty major highway) or way down in the woods, or trampling my neighbours yard, or just running down the road with a crazy lady chasing him. Well he mostly did stay within the confines of our yard, only by way of my good keeping one step ahead of him and keeping him away from the borders. But we did have one extremely scary moment where he ran along the side of the road, with me chasing him, but me closer to the road than him really hoping he wouldn't cross. Needless to say I got some exercise. The good news began shortly thereafter. I got him a little away from the road, yelled again at Kevin (who had disappeared) to grab me my rope back, which got left behind when my mad dash had started. While I waited for Kevin to appear, Mr. Cow and I stared eachother down. I think he was getting tired too. I tried to tie him, but even though I got the rope around his neck, it really does no good when it's just me holding the other end. Mr. Cow is strong!! By the end of that chase he headed back near his pen, and I asked (okay I yelled again) Kevin to grab me the phone and come right back. He did this very quickly. I managed on the fourth try (I'm sure the number not in service had more to do with my shaky fingers than the number not actually being in service) to get dad on the end, "Dad, where are you?" He was at U.Bruce's - less than five minutes away. "The cow is out in the yard and I can't catch him!" He promised to be right over with U. Eric. By this time Mr.Cow had slowed considerably and was eating leaves and trees. Five minutes. "Kevin, walk slowly. Don't make noise. " Anyhow, Mr. Cow took no final jogs, and dad and U.Eric walked up to him one on each end and dad stuck his fingers in his snout and U. Eric slipped a halter on and they made it look SO easy!!! Hmph. Then began the push/pull to the truck. It wasn't bad at all and with all the muscle power going full force, Mr. Cow was loaded and off. Was I sad? HMMPH!! Sorry, I know after 6 months there should be some affection, but I don't believe I'll miss that guy one bit. Thus ends the adventure of Mr. Cow. I think next year the plan is to have some Mrs. Chickens. We'll see. In the meantime, we will enjoy Mr. Cow as he will look below.
Oh, and I learned a lesson too. Don't try to be helpful unless you really know what you are doing and who you are up against. I think back to how easy dad and U. Eric made it look and wonder why in the world I bothered. Maybe for the sake of blogging. The End.
The last 8 weeks Kevin has been involved in a basketball clinic. This was a lot of fun for him and for us to watch. The coach and helpers were great and it was amazing how far the kids came after a few weeks. Something the kids found nearly impossible the first and second week, they were doing really well by the 6th and 7th week. 
