Fences Make Good Fences

It is my habit now in the late winter to let the horse and cow onto the neighbor’s hill pasture during the day to give ours a greater chance to grow (although even now it is outgrowing the demand on it). The donkey, however, cannot be let out there because he is B.A.D. and well, just bad. He gets out. He’d go to the garden or eat my outside wasabis or something like that, so he is relegated to stay in the main back pasture. Which he hates. Tough luck.

It doesn’t take any of them but a few days to learn any routine, so when I traipse down through the field and whistle for the horse and ‘sooooook-cow’ for the cow, they come, and not to me but to the long gate. The long gate has to be lifted to be opened and as I was doing that the horse got impatient and tried to come through before it was opened.

Which again made me assess our decision to go with electric fences as a good one. The fence he was against gave way which meant I, who was pressed up against the gate, didn’t have to give way. Which means now I have to go fix the fence but the thing about that is, electric fence repair is easy, quick, cheap – and has to be done fairly often too. And I assessed my decision to be in good physical shape a wise one because I was squeezed, and when a 2000# horse squeezes you, you are squeezed, believe me.

As I was recovering from my near crushing experience and assessing what mistakes I had made to lead up to it and what I would do in the future differently, the donkey took note of my distraction and made his run through the gate. So now there I was, without a radio with which to contact my family who were all still in the house, with a loose donkey who would maraude if I left him alone and who has never been trained well enough for me to actually lead him. Ooops again. So I caught him and just waited and eventually someone happened by to help me.

The cow’s production has gone up with the growth of the grass. The equines are shedding and scratching on everything. I have three roosters put up to kill today. And now a fence to fix.