A Herd of Two (And Oxen in the Mire)

Last Wednesday I got a text from Mike informing me of a steer butcher date scheduled for 1/8/2026. 

Later, when I shared this text with the kids, Abe commented, "1/8/26, a day of unending tears and sorrow, after which many children will likely refuse to eat their pot roast."

Haha! That is likely true, only, what was most interesting about Mike's text was that ... we had no steers!

Had being the key word, I guess, because by 6:30 that evening we did have our first herd of cattle!

Oh all right. Not a herd. 

Two. 

We had two little steers. (Which we all keep calling cows even though technically cows are girls.)

Within the next few days they managed to escape twice. (Once when the kids exuberant running and hollering to greet the new additions to the farm scared the steers so horribly that they bent and clamored frantically over a fence just to get away from our terrifying children. And once when we thought they might do all right in the big, fenced pasture [rather than in the smaller pen they were in] and they climbed through the barbed wire strands to wander to the nethermost corners of the farm.)

There is nothing that makes you feel more amateurish than driving over to check on your cattle only a few days after buying them ... only to find no cattle to speak of anywhere in sight!

It was a Sunday after church when we discovered them missing from the pasture. Eventually, after driving around and around and asking every neighbor we saw if they'd seen them, we spotted them in a low corner of the property. We went home to change out of our church clothes and returned to slowly herd them a great distance back to some stronger panels to keep them contained until they are either more used to the place ... or big enough that they can't squeeze through barbed wire!

In these distant shots you will see one or the other of us trying to guide the fellas back. It was a mixture of hemming them in from going the wrong direction while not getting so close that they panicked and ran all helter skelter anywhere they could get. Blocking them while keeping a non-threatening distance, guiding them while not scaring them into flight. 

We managed it quite well I thought. And I felt rather pleased to realize that for the first time in my life I had an ox in the mire (steer in the alfalfa field) that was ... quite literal!

It does feel like a rather momentous thing to have gone from hens and goats to cattle! We're not even joking around anymore. (Though I do still feel rather like we are pretending!)

The herding crew ready to go. (I was also part of the crew mind you.)

It was so funny when we went over to where the cows had wandered. All these horses came running (yes running) to the fence to watch. It sort of felt like they were saying, "Oh man. This is going to be good. I told you those steers were going to get it!"

Jesse stopping them from trying to cross the canal.

A tricky point when we had to get them through a gate. Mike being patient and unthreatening from behind as they waffled nervously back and forth.

Carrying some panels to a new location for the cows.

Penny not being afraid of farm work. (She says she's a city girl, but she can't really help it. The country is in her DNA.)

There's a metaphor in this smaller enclosure here seeming related to teenagers. So much freedom we were trying to give our steers in the big pasture ... if only they'd respect the few boundaries we set. Hmm.

Is it a pile of manure? Or just dirt? Does someone pile up manure? Will we someday? And if so, why? I just don't know. Yet.

Making a cozy bedding area for the stinker steers.

Fences Down and Roads Closed

We took down the rest of the barbed-wire fence along the front of the farm. We have a lot of road frontage! (About 1,100 feet! Which is nearly a quarter of a mile.) And we'd only taken down about a third of it.

This time Mike decided to give up on saving the barbed wire. Which made it go much much more quickly. It was still hauling barbed wire and pulling posts. That's no picnic (in case you were wondering). But cutting the barbed wire (rather than getting all the impossible clips and stays off of it and then rolling the entire strand) was so much faster!

Penny had a performance of her play that day, but Daisy was home for the weekend, so she and I switched off watching the little ones and helping Mike, Jesse and Anders with fencing (defencing?) at the farm. Sadly, that means I wasn't there at the same time as Daisy to take any pictures of her.

We took all the metal to a recycling place, and we gathered up all the metal stakes, but I didn't realize just how many wooden posts were left behind. Mike went back for those on another day, and it was hours (in wind and snow) of work piling wooden posts (and several 200 lb railroad ties) all onto a trailer. Poor man. But ... living his dream, so (shrug).

It's great that we got it all taken down because this very week they have finally started on the road shoulder we have to build out (the entire length of all that fencing) before the county will let us build.

How maddening that particular county requirement has been, how many calls and people we've talked to, how hard to find anyone who would get us a bid much less do the job, how shockingly much money it is costing us (that might have gone into building our home) is a tedious and discouraging story for another day. 

But! It doesn't change the excitement I feel about it finally getting out of the way! There's something oddly thrilling about trying to drive down a road only to find the entire thing closed ... because of you! (Mind you don't tell all the vehicles that have had to [and will continue to need to] detour for a week or so that it's because of us.)

You can see a couple of construction vehicles down there. I didn't even dare to drive along the road myself to see the progress (though I was incredibly tempted!). I'll need Mike with me so I don't feel like I have to answer to anyone. Still, for a thing that feels somewhat criminal for them to have made us do, it feels pretty exciting to see it happening!)

Some Things

It's 6:30 on a Friday night. (Though it feels closer to midnight with the recent time change.) Mike isn't home yet. (I texted him two hours ago informing him that it turns out I can only survive until 4:00 pm before missing him too much to go on. But apparently my wanting him here ... won't pay the bills.) 

But dinner's cleaned up, the boys have fed the goats (so Mike won't have to do it in the dark when he gets back), and the kids are all in pajamas and watching a Friday-night movie. ...

Annnnnd ... I got distracted (did my husband arrive home? is that what distracted me? I can't recall, but happy thought if it was) and now it's Monday, and I don't know what I'd intended to write about when I began this on Friday.

Still. Surely there's something to tell? Some ... things?

Let's see.

Abe just participated (and placed!) in his first jiu-jitsu tournament as a blue belt.

He also sent us these lovely photos:

(Poor Hansie. That was his face after a fall at a friend's birthday party. The party was at a tumbling place where the entire building was covered in spongy, bouncy things. ... The entire building except for the one spot where Hans managed to fall directly onto his face. But Daisy venmoed money for him to buy ice cream and Abe turned him into Rocky so there was a silver lining I suppose.)

Daisy came home this weekend for Penny's play (more pictures of that later) and lucked upon the week of the kids' primary program as well. She made us an amazing apple crumble, and, in turn, we made her steak.

Goldie is coming home in 3.5 months! I really haven't been thinking at all of her as a nearing-the-end-of-her-mission missionary! It's wild to me when things that existed for so long only in the idea stage move not only into reality but onwards toward memory!

A tiny snippet from her:

"You never know what to expect in the day of a missionary. For example: being sent away with the fanfare of bubble guns, a preacher promising to pray we find good husbands (telling us to call him when we do), and using all our ikea skills to build someone a crib with dogs and 2 year olds climbing all over it. Missionary life is full of surprises and I love it."

We had our first snowfall a week and a half ago. (And another one today.) 

The fog/snow combo made it completely white out there.

I got out of bed to help a few of the kids who were struggling to get appropriate snow gear and then went out in my bathrobe to take a few photos. (And then I nearly sent Mike to meet his maker with the shock of bitter cold I brought back into our bed with me.)

With the snow, the kids started thinking Christmas thoughts. Starling requested red and green elastics for her hair and when I only had pink and yellow to offer, she, feeling disappointed to not have her elastics match some sort of holiday, asked hopefully, "Are pink and yellow the color of ... family reunions?"

Yes. Of course they are.

And I don't know if this falls under the category of "things to tell", but here is a photo from a drive out to the elementary in Mendon one morning. I think Mendon is the most charming little town ever.

And now for a picture of Penny as her high school theater historian and the rest of her Unsinkable Molly Brown pictures. (They won't let us take photos during the play, so this year Penny cleverly volunteered me to take pictures during one of the rehearsals. There are 300 other photos where these came from. Haha.)

And that will end this post. (How one must lie down to read when wearing a turtleneck. [Because who can bear it against their neck?])