Houdini

Family Dinner: We had family dinner at our house yesterday and we had a good turn out as Nate's mom was in Utah for a Dr. appointment for Vern. Molly and Johnny came and surprised us with a truckload of wood chips that they can get for free from a source around the corner from their house. Sam brought little Marie as Em had to work and Theron has been sick. Abe brought his 3 kids and James (who is staying with them) but Yuko was also sick and stayed home. We had lots of yummy food including enchiladas, fried chicken, 7 layer dip, and ice cream sandwiches, brownies, and chocolate milk for dessert.

 Uncle Tom reading The Saggy Baggy Elephant to Chloe and Blain

Blainy reading with Papa Vern

The Great Escape Escapes: We've all come to know that Betty gets antsy around people she doesn't know but her determination to be away from them was revealed yesterday. Sam took Molly, Johnny and Abe out to shoot my bow and his crossbow. The target is set up pretty close to Betty's  pen. I guess someone hit the sheet metal (think loud grating noise) and they were working to get it out when Betty took a running start and plowed through the gate. Well Nate finally lured her back in, secured the gate and we all went in to eat. 

A little later Molly went out to look at her and I guess Betty was still on edge because she drove her way through the gate into the corral next door, slipped under the bars and again made it out into the back pasture. Once everyone went home I offered her some grain and she came to me willingly. We put her back and she stayed there all night.

 Fast forward to this morning. I go out to feed her, she's back to normal (or so I thought), licking me as I feed her and resting in her corral. Well Nate goes out to work on the fence line and I come out after conference at noon. There's Betty in the back pasture again. She had busted through the side panels and gotten out. Nate puts in new posts, resecures the side boards, and moves the gate so it opens in rather than out. I get her from the pasture and let her go in the newly secured pen.

 She immediately starts testing out all the old weak spots. Finding none, she goes to the inside area and crawls over and between two beams. Luckily Nate was right there and caught her so we didn't have to do any chasing. But it meant reconfiguring the rest of her holding area, moving beams lower and putting more on. She is not showing signs of trying to escape yet but we'll see how the next hours and days go. Man, we may have gotten more than we bargained for getting this old, ornery, tiny, possibly not pregnant cow. It'll all be worth it if she's pregnant and gives us a little heifer, or at least turns out to be a nice milker. I like to think this is good practice for when we have to fence in pigs :)

Happy conference weekend!