Moon over Martinborough

Since moving to the country I’ve learned that sometimes smart cattle and sheep perform the farm equivalent of a prison break – with one key difference. Instead of breaking out, they break in.

After work one evening last week, I was on my way to the chook house to collect the day’s eggs when I came across two cows in the backyard. They were just beyond the laundry line, clearly on the wrong side of the fence.

Of course I did what any level-headed city boy would do upon coming face to face with two large, beastly escaped convict cows by the laundry line. I turned around and ran the other way.

I shot alongside the house and past the kitchen window. Rick was inside at the kitchen sink. “Cows in the yard!” I yelled, still running.

Rick told me later that he was certain I wanted no part of the cow problem. To him, my message was clear. You deal with it. I’m outta here.

Little did he know that I was doing the most sensible thing imaginable. I was running to the front gate.

The road

We live on a country road. The speed limit is 100 kph (62 Mph). It’s the kind of road you see in car ads, where a lone luxury vehicle is hurtling through scenic beauty at high speeds. There’s a bend in the road just before you get to our place. If a cow was on that road as you came around the corner, you’d have very little time to stop. The results could be deadly, and not just for the cow.

No way was I going to let these scheming, criminal cows make a dash for that road. Their desperate prison break dreams ended with me. I was law. I was order. I was the Martinborough Bovine Patrol.

Although cows are smart, fortunately their lack of opposable thumbs makes it difficult for them to open the clasp on a farm gate. I closed the gate, clasped it tightly, and thanked the gods for thumbs.

Delicious natives

When I got back to the house, Rick was just coming out in his gum boots.

Much to my surprise, the hooligan cows were not calculating their next escape route. They were still where I’d found them, peacefully eating. Then I saw their selected main course – the native flax and miniature toi-toi that Rick had meticulously planted the weekend before.

Rick wailed a long and agonizing “Noooo!”

The fence that's supposed to keep the cows out

The cows, much to Rick’s disappointment, were unmoved. They continued happily munching, clearly very pleased that all those fresh, tasty morsels were so easy to pull out of the ground by the roots. In front of them the garden lay ravaged.

I had misjudged these cows. They were not the jail-breaking prison scum I’d assumed. Why, they weren’t thugs at all!

These cows were more like bovine versions of Martha Stewart, locked in a minimum security detention facility and sick of the mediocre food. They were desperate gourmands, and they were willing to go to any length for a fine meal. Even a prison break.

In Rick’s newly planted native garden they had found something like a ruminant’s all-you-can-eat luxury buffet. I could almost hear their pleasant tableside chit chat.

“Oh, this food is so much better than that low-brow paddock grass on offer on our side of the fence. Don’t you think?”

“Yes, darling. This toi-toi is gorgeous! And did you try the native ferns? Simply divine!”

These poor prisoner cows, desperate after months of instant mashed potatoes and frozen peas, were now gleefully shoving their mouths full of duck liver pate.

We stepped closer to them, and they looked up at us strangely. Imagine Martha Stewart looking at a prison guard who had just found her after she’d escaped to a nearby gourmet restaurant, and you get the idea.

They were worried, but not because we presented any real threat. They just didn’t want their meal to end.

Rick and I have learned a few things since we madly chased renegade sheep out of our bottom paddock. With the gate to the road shut, there was no longer any need to run. We moved slowly and calmly, just like ‘real’ farmers would.

We both scanned the fenceline, searching for the spot where it had been breached. We’ve had stock in the backyard several times before.

Other security breaches

Once, over a year ago, Rick’s Aunt Mims was visiting from the States when she had a dream that a cow was walking along the deck outside her bedroom window. That morning when we looked outside we found three cows had pushed through a loose plank in the wooden fence and were grazing in the yard. They were followed by four opportunistic sheep. We still don’t know if Aunt Mims’ cow on the deck was really just a dream.

Another time, when we first moved in, I’d been working in my studio off the garage when I heard an amazing clamor out in the yard. I opened the sliding glass door and rounded the corner to see literally hundreds of sheep running from the road directly into our backyard.

The sheep were headed down the green alleyway between the gum trees and the tall pines, stampeding for the veggie garden. I tried to head them off at the pass and ran along the house to beat them.

Light in the shelterbelt trees

There was a farmer out on the road yelling and cussing and blowing on a whistle to send commands to his dogs. The dogs managed, fortunately, to get to the veggie garden before me. They barked and barked and turned the sheep around towards the road.

As the sheep left I followed them out and closed the front gate behind them. The farmer was on a quad bike on the road. When he saw me he stopped swearing and became incredibly apologetic. Local custom is that farmers moving stock on the roads close any open driveway gates beforehand, and this farmer had clearly missed ours. But I was too busy laughing to be upset. It felt like a welcome to rural life.

Back to the Martha Stewart cows

After scanning the fenceline, Rick and I still couldn’t see where our latest uninvited guests had broken in.

The cattle and sheep in our paddocks do not belong to us. We lease the land to a stock agent, and the animals are his. It’s also his job to maintain and fix the fences, but we pay for materials.

Rick stepped forward, and suddenly one of the two cows went bolting behind some trees – straight for the section of fence nearest to the road.

There was the sound of breaking branches and snapping twigs underfoot, and just when I expected to see the cow out on the road, it appeared over in the top paddock. It had pushed through a bad fence repair job from last year. That must have been how they’d gotten in.

In the meantime, the second cow had turned the other way and ran over towards our Granny Smith apple tree. Rick walked slowly in that direction to keep the cow cornered as I approached the large gate to the top paddock and opened it.

Then we both gradually walked around and blocked the cow’s path so that it ran straight out the open gate, just as we’d wanted.

Moving cattle

But our job wasn’t done. I looked at the bad fence repair job from last year and saw that the cows had left behind yet another gaping hole. The top paddock held five cows, and there was nothing to stop them from immediately re-entering our yard.

We didn’t have the materials (or know-how) to fix the fence. So it was clear that we had to move the cows. But we’d never done that before. After all, they’re not our cows.

We walked out into that paddock and closed the gate behind us. Rick walked down to the left, toward the pond behind the hay shed where the cows were trying to hide. I went to the right. We moved slowly, calmly.

Rick drove the cows out and away from the pond, up the far side of the hay shed and towards the gate to the middle paddock, which I had by then unclasped and left wide open. When the cows tried to bypass the open gate and run back into the top paddock, I was there with my arms outstretched to stop them. They turned and ran out the open gate, into the middle paddock.

Evening sky

Rick and I got to the open fence at the same time and swung it shut together.

“We did it,” he said, smiling.

“Yes,” I laughed. “You’d almost think we knew what we’re doing.”

We’re learning, slowly.

Evening was coming, and the sky was turning an indigo blue. We stopped at the chook house, picked up the eggs, and wandered back to the house together.

–

Read the next post: Island Martinborough

Or read other posts on sheep and cattle.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 29th, 2009 at 8:48 am and is filed under New Zealand, Paddocks, Sheep & cattle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.