Watching the Cows Go By

The saying is "watching the world go by" but this morning here on the farm it was "watching the cows go by." The corn field to the west of our house is farmed by a friend and he asked if we could pasture our cows on his stalks to clean up any of the ears of corn that dropped off before it was harvested. If the corn lays there until next spring/summer some will sprout and make a mess in the field as it mixes with the hybrid corn or if he plants soybeans it competes with that crop and would have to be sprayed so it is a good deal for both of us to have our cattle graze the field.

John put a single wire electric fence around the field and connected it to our field that goes east and south of our house. The cows were turned out into the "addition" a day ago so they are in the new area quite a bit.

The day John turned them out they first all walked the perimeter of the field. They never touch the fence but check it all out...sometimes I think they are looking for a way out. Cows know what an electric fence is as they learned as calves that it will give them a little shock if they touch it so they just don't.

It is nice to be able to put up this kind of fence since it goes up and down fairly easily. John puts in small posts, rolls out the one wire and hooks it to the fence then hooks it to the battery or electrical fencer that is plugged into an outlet. It is so much nicer to be able to take all the fencing down when the cattle are no longer in that particular field. With the big machinery and tractors it is really hard for the farmer to farm around and next to a fence so the permanent fences around farm fields have all been removed years ago. Pastures are still fenced permanently though.

This morning I was in my sewing room and looked out my window and this is what I saw. The cows, calves and bulls were grazing close to our back yard (on the other side of the fence of course.) They were moving down the corn rows picking up corn as they found it.

Several cows congregated in the corner of the field and I had to laugh at one of the cows. She stood and stared at the lawn. She stood there looking for quite some time and then she would look down the line at the fence. I could just imagine her thinking "if I could only get over that fence I could get inside the yard and eat that yummy green grass." I could just hear her sigh as she eventually wandered off with the rest of her friends.



The permanent fence you see is around our yard on the outside of the windbreak is to keep any livestock from tromping through the yard ...you can't see the electric fence.  The problem is there is no gate on the end and several cattle and a horse have gotten in when they escaped their pens. Must get that remedied sometime as they make deep tracks!

The cattle wandered back to the same area around 4 this afternoon but my curious cow didn't stop and lust after my lawn this time.

I am working on coming up with an idea for some of the quilting I need to do on the miniature so I have  not made any progress from the photos I showed you last week.  Today I spent a lot of time looking on the internet and think I found a couple of ideas that might work on the 1/2" borders, my problem section.  Will hopefully have some progress to show soon.

Until Later,
Lynn
Have to clarify - the permanent fence is the one that doesn't have a gate and the electric fence is all enclosed....my language was a little unclear above, sorry.