Cow Clinic: Part 2

(cows next door to the east)

Our pastures are surrounded by cows on three sides, and our horses are exposed to a lot of cow goings on. Today they will be introducing a new bull to the East pasture herd to cover the heifers, something they did last month in the North pasture.

Sometimes, like when a herd came running at us across the fence, and one cow happened to have a white garbage bag in its mouth, it set Tumbleweed’s hair on fire. 

But usually they get along peacefully and even bond a little over the fence. (At least Leah did with one sweet heifer a few years ago).

To prepare for the clinic, I asked one of my neighbors if we could ride the horses in his cow pasture, to give them the feel of being near cows on the loose. 

He said yes, and I could ride it any time I want. 

I started by riding T in our adjoining pastures each day and up to the fence where the cows were grazing. 

He did great with that and was only mildly interested in them. 

There was a time, not long ago, that riding Tumbleweed at home was pretty challenging. He’d get bothered to leave the herd behind. He’s not like that at all anymore, and has become a pleasure to ride at home.

I had a scheduled lesson with Katie to ride into the neighbor’s pastures, me on Tweed and her on Epona, then her on Tweed and daughter on Epona, but she got sick and had to reschedule to a day that I was babysitting and daughter was working. 

It was also the day before the clinic. 

I was disappointed not to be able to ride with her, but I thought it was still good to have her do it and let them experience cows at liberty before the clinic. 

Both horses did awesome for their first time pushing cows. They were unsure what to think when the big heifers would face off with them and give them the stink eye, or kick dirt up at them, but they pretty quickly figured out they were the bosses. 

We felt pretty good about the preparation and were excited for the clinic. 

Then we looked at the weather report for the clinic and saw they were predicting rain and wind. It was sun, sun, sun, rain / wind, then sun, sun, for as far as the forecast went out. 

Bad luck, but you can’t predict the weather when you schedule clinics. 

To be continued.