Cattle are frustrating at times--very frustrating...

Before I tell of our wild morning, here's a picture of the tower of corn the boys made when they were husking some sweet corn for us.  :)

We had a request for 5 head of cattle to be butchered for our friends, so we headed up for pasture to sort out 5 animals and to try to get them loaded in the trailer and hauled to Linton.

 

First, we had to find the 5 we wanted to get rid of...

 We have to stop selling them pretty soon or we won't have cows to be mamas next year!  :)

 I decided to sell one of my bulls for slaughter too.

 So, one of my young first-time calving heifers was decided on to be sold as she keeps breaking out of the fence and just didn't stick with the rest of the herd very well.    White 30 was her number.  She was pretty wild!   Very very long story short, after getting her sorted off 3 times and she turned back and ran through/over the fence back in with the herd, we finally realized she wasn't going to go to the corralling where the trailer was waiting.  Andrew drove alongside of her with the pickup and I was able to just stick the rope out of the window and slip it over her head.  Andrew said to throw Dad the other end of the rope so he could try and tie it on the hitch of the pickup.  I don't think my dad appreciated that very much---having a wild cow on the other end of the rope and all!  He was able to get the rope wrapped around the hitch but it wasn't on very well and so he hopped up on the fuel-tank on the back of the pickup and wrapped the rope around the handle of the tank too and held onto it.   White 30 of course choked herself down and just stayed put for a while, catching her breath.  Then, she'd get up and ram the pickup and anything else in sight.  We were glad she didn't try climbing in the back of the pickup with Dad--she was that crazy wild!   To think we raised that animal!  I wonder what makes some animals so skittish? 

Anyway, Andrew went back to Mom and the stock-trailer and brought it up to where we were.  Dad quickly ran the end of the rope into the trailer where we wrapped it around a metal bar and held on.  Dad and Jacob got the cow up then again and by that time, Andrew had his 4-wheeler away from her (she wrecked a couple things on Dad's 4-wheeler too) and hooked the end of the rope up to the winch on his 4-wheeler.  He slowly pulled on it to get the cow coming in the right direction and she was finally in!  Whew!  The guys tired her up front in the trailer, as we had to get my bull in with her up front so we could close that gate and get the other 3 cows in back.

We chased my bull into the corralling pretty easily.  Then, while the guys were getting the trailer ready, I was going to close a gate that led into the alleyway so the bull wouldn't go in there before the guys were ready.  I walked to the end of the gate and the bull put his head down and charged at me.  I was grateful to have the gate there and was ready to hop over it to the other side if he decided to come to the back side of it, as I hadn't budged it yet.  Thankfully, he backed off and I just left the gate open.  I warned my dad about him, but my dad just walked in there and told the bull to go, and he did.  Hmmmmm....   Maybe he was mad at me selling him?  ;)

After that, we went way back out to the herd to sort off the other 3 critters.  Here, Jacob's keeping an eye on one of Andrew's young cows who didn't breed this year...

 Andrew, looking for Blue 11...

 Mom was in the pickup with me and we were keeping an eye on the other cow...

 This was after the wild cow/bull experiences, so we have good reason to look as though we were having bad hair-days!  ;)  We're just so grateful for all the times that God keeps us safe as we work with large animals...

Those 3 sorted off fairly easily and didn't give us much trouble at all.  Once all 5 were loaded, we all headed home---Dad pulling the trailer; Mom in the black pickup; Andrew riding his dirt-bike; and Jacob and I with 4-wheelers.   We were all hungry!

The rest of the day was, thankfully, much less eventful.  I canned apple butter; made another batch; cut up apples for yet another batch; then got some apple-leather going in the dehydrators.  My dad took the animals to Linton.  Mom had some business to take care of and the boys worked on projects.  They're excited about the large farm-consignment auction in Jamestown tomorrow...