24 Nov 2007
Loose Bull

Well, we had some excitement and no mistake last evening - we had dinner with Mom and got home about 7:30pm, full of pizza. I had stopped by the mailbox on the way in, and there was a letter for Kris in there, so after I did the evening chores, I decided to run it over to her. Fed the cats, gathered eggs, filled up the stock tank and came back in to get the letter and go. I hadn't actually opened a gate to the paddock in all of this - just the one to the pasture to close the chickens in for the night. But when I came back out ...

Chip, our 2000+ pound Highland bull was gently grazing - behind the driveway! The paddock gate had popped open, probably after being butted by something, and both he and Maeg (the herd cow) were loose, in the dark, and headed for Mitchell's corn stubble field! Yikes!

Dashed into the house, got Lorraine and dashed back out, pausing only long enough to grab the stock stick. Lorraine got down to the gate and kept Hammer from escaping as well (that would've been a true disaster) and I got west of Chip and Maeg and started moving them back.

All in all, it went remarkably smoothly and took very little time - perhaps fifteen minutes. After we got them back, I rehinged the gate (temporarily - I'll take a better look this morning), and drove a barn nail into the gate post and chained it shut as well. But I can assure you that for those fifteen minutes, my heart was pounding faster than it had for quite a while ...

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