Always Expect the Unexpected

I didn't come from a farming family but one thing I learnt very early on as a Farmer's wife was that life can be unpredictable. Only a week before our wedding our cattle got out and went walk about. We spent at least a couple of hours driving around the local lanes locating and rounding up the wandering animals. There were a few knowing comments expressed by my future in laws about let's hope this doesn't happen next Saturday. This did have me concerned that my husband to be might leave me standing at the altar whilst he was chasing cows. Fortunately nothing disastrous happened to spoilt our special day.

 Quite a few years on ( twenty two at the end of this month) I have become accustomed to phone calls informing us that the cows/sheep are out and to dropping everything to rush off in hot pursuit.

 Today was such a day. I was still in my dressing gown when the call came from Kate that her cows had escaped into the adjoining field. I did have time to scramble into my clothes and off I went with the girls. This may seem a simple matter apart from the stream and banks that they had happily crossed alone but were  far from keen to traverse with our encouragement. Needless to say I didn't have time to take my camera but managed a few shots  on my phone of the first of three attempts. 

The girls cross to find the cows.

Emma manages to tempt them to the edge with a bag of tasty barley.

Looks like we are nearly there!

Alas no! Back they turn at the last minute! Eventually with all three of us waving, shouting and a little swearing we get them back. What it did confirm for me was that I am in need of a new pair of boots. The wading in the stream resulted in more water in my mucker boots than there was in the stream! 

The cows were escorted to a different feed ( a story for another day) and we rushed home to set off to market to buy more sheep and that story will have to wait for another day too!