More Cows in the Yard. Ugh.

Okay, at first it was amusing seeing cows in the yard. They were an unexpected sight and kind of humorous. But then they started coming in every day, jumping our cattle guard. Although I didn't mind them eating the leaves in the yard, those leaves that I never got around to raking last fall (actually I raked them into a pile and then the wind blew them back all over the yard). What made me go over the tipping point when I had steaming fresh piles of cow manure on my nice patio. That's just not right.

So when I looked out my bedroom window and saw this scene, I was not pleased. The cows in the big group were eating Henry's old straw/hay doghouse. Something had to be done.

The first step was to get the cows out of the yard. Henry isn't much help in this, he usually chases the cows in the wrong direction. They panic and break through the fence. Here's one cow that's spotted an opening.

She gets closer and prepares for...
...the leap over the fence. That must be worth an Olympic medal.

We now have four broken sections of fence. My husband has repaired two and they aren't very pretty repairs. We're going to have to spend some time redoing them and painting if we want to have a decent looking fence. Which, I have to admit, is pretty low on our list of house and yard maintenance. So if you're looking for our house, look for the one with the yard full of cows and the crazy-looking fence.

My husband removed the straw bale doghouse. By the time he got to it, the cows had demolished the bales and it was pretty much just straw spread out. Desert Boy and Henry "helped." Desert Boy was very adept at telling his dad how to do it. He's already ready to be a boss.

By the way, sorry for the lousy quality of these photos. I had my camera on a wrong setting and didn't notice until I had them on the computer.

With the straw gone, the cows still came into the yard to munch on the leaves, bushes, and whatever else looked appetizing. Then we got the garden ready to plant, which included bringing a load of manure and old silage for fertilizer. Somehow those cows got a whiff of that old silage, and we suddenly had another yard full of cows. So we might not have much silage in the garden for fertilizer, but we should have quite a bit of manure, both fresh and old!