Happily this nice bovine is wearing a halter, and is interested in the grain she offers. Unhappily he is NOT impressed with being attached to a tree, and manages to pull the short lead rope off. Finally she is heading toward the gate with him following and I nip through the back, grabbing my leather gloves and down to unlock the gate. She can crawl under, no way is THAT old black and white going to manage. [If you remember Ada, she was much more nimble.]
I get down there, and the steer is already doing it’s own thing again, which means heading for the brush line minus it’s owner. Well, crud, I’m still packing the warehouse key anyway, not the gate key, so at least she is not waiting on me. Back up the hill, exchange keys, make a brief potty stop as it looks like this could be an extended exercise session and back down the hill. They are in the burn, just above the garden spot. You don’t know about the burn? Ah, another day…
By the way, this old steer is growing as we watch him. He has some serious weight to shove around. So do I. But he is beginning to make me feel almost….petite? Okay that would be stretching it a mite! The neighbor has him hooked now with two lead ropes, the ends around a tree and looped to on another. He is NOT liking it one bit. We try to shorten the lead so he has less room to throw his weight, and down I go on my backside. Good soil down there, not too hard, but I’m sure glad I missed the fertilizer he’s been spreading AND took that potty break earlier.
He IS temporarily secure, so the neighbor backs her truck in the gate, and over to our ‘pine tree squeeze shoot’. Yeah, you know that is said tongue in cheek and hand rubbing the posterior. Hurray! In the truck she finds a new tow rope; way longer than we need, bright yellow and looks too darn skinny but this has to work.
I mention that she’ll have a tale to share with the granddaughters and she laughs and says oh yes, they think she does nothing all day. Plus whenever there is an animal issue, it is always on a day her husband is working. Of course, we know that!
As far as we know, no one was out taking videos, because this last bit getting Ada’s cousin transferred from pine trees to truck bumper was quite the effort. With the lines strung rather like a block and tackle, it was a case of loosen here, tighten there, now unclip a line while quickly snugging up the main one. Eventually, there he was, double fastened, looped and knotted and prayed over, with about five feet of lead behind the truck.
Well what do you know? He never even flinched when she started the truck, just placidly followed as she eased down the drive to the gate and through. UNTIL, the edge of the paved road. He locked his knees, almost sat down. I had new visions, of the rope breaking and a fridge full of steak and hamburger tumbling backward into the gate posts with more than enough force to flatten them. Didn’t happen. A bit of tire burning, low gear grumbling and he gave in….trotted off up the road behind the old truck and, so far, that is the last I saw of them.