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.