Will's Blog

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Living in the country has it's advantages. You are out away from people, never have to travel for a good hiking trail, and farm animals are at your finger tips. The last one is a good thing with young children around. The children can learn first hand about farm animals that most people only read about in books and see in pictures. The children love seeing the sheep and going "baaaa." Liam was very excited when all of the calves were born. Every trip by the calf field was accompanied by cries of "calves!". Of course, the cows on the farm are not quite the dairy cows that I am use to in the states. I would say they are about twice the size and even the heifers have horns.

Ok, so there are some down sides that may not be so highly publicized or thought about. Occasionally Sheep and Lambs will get out and find their way up to our door or into the play area. It is never that much of bother. Just call the farmer, while the kids enjoy the closeness to the animals. I never put much gray matter into thinking about what happens when cows get out of their pastures and decide to romp around the houses. Usually one just goes for some tastey grass and then seeks out more cows to taunt outside of a pasture.

That is until one wakes you up at 2am tearing apart your house and you look at them in a different light for the hulking masses of strength that they are. One horned heifer found her way in between mine and the neighbor's houses. Between the two houses in a stone patio adjoining the two with a dividing fence down the middle (approximately 4 feet between my house and the fence). Everywhere on the farm are gates to stop or divert animal flow. They are usually highly useful when all of them are closed. Then someone leaves one gate open and allows rogue cows to funnel directly up inbetween the houses. In the daylight it would not have been quite the issue, but a four foot wide space, coupled with the pitch black of an overcast, moonless night is a recipe for the hulking monstrosity to cause some damage in panic!

At 2am Bekah woke me up because she thought someone might be in the house. The hooves on the attached stone patio caused a reverberation that sounded a lot like someone was frolicking around in the living room. My thoughts jumped immediately to an animal walking around outside. I journeyed down to the living room, turned on the outside light, and peered at a nice black and white hide. The only real problem is that the cow noticed the light on and wanted to come in for a spot of tea through the nice glass door (like the one pictured).

She (the cow, not the wife) decided that I was not going to open up the door after politely knocking on it a few times. The heifer, thankfully, determined that it would be much easier to finish off ramming the gate in front of her, which led into a stone walled-in area with a couple of fuel oil tanks. With gate in splinters and an area about 6 foot square (with fuel tanks on two of the sides), the panicked heifer luckily decide that the best way to exit was directly through the stone wall. Stone walls in the UK are not like brick and mortar walls that are found in the states. The walls are essentially carefully stacked stones, which one adrenaline filled cow can easily demolish. After a few more broken gates, she managed to find herself away from the houses with a little less of her blood.

Moral of the story. There is no Bull about it, when some tells you to close a gate, close it and keep it closed.