An early morning jog around the farm............

Or sort of.

Got home last night about 10:30 after Tim's game. Went to bed about 11:30. Last time I looked at the clock was about 11:45. About 12:30 AM I heard cows....... Loud.... which means they are not out in the pasture....... no...... They are right outside the bedroom window!!!! Up we go! Throw on some clothes.... get John up (let Tim sleep)... Out the door we go... John and I with flashlights and Rich jumps on the 4 wheeler. Sure enough....... There they all are (thank God there's only about 30 of them... each with a calf) standing in my back yard and in the Wheat field! Of course the moon is not out so it's pitch black. Here we go....... running through the field and yard trying to get these 4 legged beasts turned around and headed back to the pasture in the dark. It's almost a miracle I didn't run into something (no contacts in just my glasses on and they're not very good). Ok, so they get turned around and of course there's no casual walking to the gate, they take off on a dead run in John's direction. He thought he was a gonner. But... they decide to head for the gate... good cows... except..... they didn't get out through the gate so it wasn't open for them to go through. Again, John has to wade through them, carefully so as not to spook them into another stampede, and open the gate. Ok, gate's open.... Rich and I shoo them through and he closes the gate. Oh no! They're heading back around the barn to the place where they got out in the first place! Rich takes off on the 4 wheeler at Mach 7.... barely misses the dog, who by the way, isn't much of a cow dog when it really matters. Rich gets to the back of the barn just as the ring leader gets to the hole. They had pushed through some panels that were tied shut with the ever indestructable baling twine. Rich was able to keep them from going through again and got the panels closed. All back in, safe and sound....EXCEPT... 2 rogue, naughty calves that decided they didn't want to head back with their mothers. They got stuck, or so they thought, behind a fence and hung out there ALL NIGHT... crying and whining when they realized they were alone. Of course all they had to do was turn around and go back through the yard and over to the gate and they would be fine. But NOOOOOO........... So.... not only were they bawling all night, so were their mothers (trying to get their babies to come to them), and because of all the noise they were making... the dog, who originally didn't even notice the cows were out, decided he needed to bark at them all night, or what was left of it. As it started getting lighter, the birds and quail started making their morning wake up calls. The alarm went off at 5:50 AM. Why even try to hit the snooze. Up and at'em. Short night..... long day...... 20 oz mocha required. Ahhhh....... Life on the farm.