we bought a farm...continued

As I mentioned in one letter, we bought all these different animals in order to get rich..I also told you it didn't happen.
Seemed like each different animal we bought and brought to the farm was a new experence.We didn't know anything about them and it was"on the job training"..I thought I would focus on cows in this letter. As previously mentioned our first cow was a milk cow that we bought..I don't know how long we kept her or who we sold her to. I will mention at this point that we didn't have a pick up for quite a while and all farms need a truck to haul feed and other supplies. The reason I am mentioning this now is because of an event that happened with a cow, and I think it was this first one.,before we got a truck.We learned early on that when a cow has her calf she likes to hide it..I have no idea why, I thought all mothers like to show off their babies..anyway, not so with cows..We knew the cow had had her calf but couldn't find it. She had been over in our north pasture so we knew she had it hidden there and the search was on. Well, we found her baby and she was not happy but we needed to get it to the house. Leland and I were over there in our car and wanted to drive them home..nope, she ain't comin'..so my brilliant husband picked up the calf and put it in the trunk..well, that calf wasn't going to stay in that thing it wanted to get out and be with mother...so my brilliant husband 'suggested' that I get in the trunk with the calf and the cow would follow..That was a noble thing he had me do..yeah right, it was me, not him. Well it worked...kinda..the cow would follow awhile and then stop.Now here is where I felt a little silly but it was the only thing working....I would baaaa baaa trying to sound like the calf and mama would start running trying to catch up..I have measured how far it is from the house to the north pasture around by the road and it's 3/4 of a mile..this stupidity went on all the way home.I really don't remember if we met anyone on the road or not but if we did, I am sure by this time they just shook their head and said 'oh, it's just those crazy people that bought that farm'
Fast forward a few years. We went into the dairy business...I don't remember how many cows we had but we milked and sold it to a place in Bonham where they made cheese. We finally got some electric milkers and that helped a lot..We were experienced at milking cows by this time, but those did speed things up a lot.
I soooo remember one cow we bought from someone in Oklahoma. She had the longest legs and she didn't just use them for running, she jumped. I always thought she could probably stand flatfooted and jump a 6" fence.Well, she too had a calf one day and did hide it.She was in different field from the other cow though and was on the other side of the fence from where she should be. Leland was doing something on the tractor and she had jumped over the fence and her hidden calf was on the other side...We needed to get her back and maybe she would go to it and we could find it..we chased her around awhile and of course, she did as she pleased not what we wanted. I guess we both got a little MAD at her..Leland told me to get on the tractor and chase her and he would run around chasing her and heading her off and all that nonsense that animals are so good at.Well, I got on the tractor and was chasing her and she finally started toward the fence and Leland was hollering 'HIT HER..HIT HER' over and over..well, I was trying but she kept out running the tractor..I gained on her and he was still instructing me to HIT HER...I did... (well, he did tell me to hit her) I think we went through the fence at the same time.
Need I say more?? The cow, the tractor and I took some fence posts and wire down..Bless his heart, I do remember seeing him go back over to the field carrying fence post, steeples and wire strechers....
Ah, country living..it's just like a busted drum...you can't beat it.

Proverbs 15 :1
A soft answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.

This is so true...I honestly don't think we did
have harsh words that day..
Esther