OK! You have heard the saying “The grass is greener on the other side.”, and usually when we say that, we are alluding to the truth that often we think the grass is greener on the other side but when we get there, we find it is the same grass that we had before, but it just looked greener! Well, I am afraid that Oreo discovered that at least at this point in our spring, the grass definitely was greener on the other side!
Of course, we were thirty minutes away at Micah’s ballgame when I realized I had missed a call from our sweet neighbor, so I immediately returned her call. She informed me that Oreo, our 7 1/2 month old steer had escaped our pasture and was happily grazing on the growing grass in theirs.
Immediately, Jeff packed up his chair and headed home. In the meantime, I called Noah to see if he knew of anyone who had experience with cattle who could help until Jeff got there. Then, I tried to get ahold of the farmer I bought our cows from and couldn’t reach him. I then made a plea on Facebook and texted a couple of people. Then Noah, who was still at work, called back and said he didn’t know anyone else but was headed over. Now this is a big deal to me because he hasn’t had much experience with our cattle because he moved out before we had more cattle than just the two mamas. This was such an act of love!
In the meantime, our sweet neighbor, Susie, was sitting at the back of her house keeping an eye on Oreo. She was concerned he might realize he was FREE for the first time in his life and head toward the road, but thankfully, he kept his head down most of the time devouring the new grass.
Noah assessed the situation, and made the smart decision to move our truck into a position to block the escape hatch so Caramel and Truffle couldn’t get out and then he had a talk with Oreo! He said Oreo didn’t like what he had to say!
Shortly after this, Jeff arrived, and even with the two of them working together, Oreo didn’t want to cooperate. He didn’t want to leave the lush grass for the dry patch of ground he has been confined to as we allow the pasture to grow. Looking at it from his perspective, who can blame him? Choice: dry hay or lush green spring grass! Thankfully, they worked together and eventually Jeff was able to get the lead rope on him and lead him back through the break in the fence.
I am so thankful that our neighbor was home and cared enough to call us! I am so thankful that Noah headed over and did what he could to minimize the danger or we could have had three ornery beasts devouring the neighbor’s pasture. And to top it all off, I am so thankful that while all of this was going on, Micah had a great game of baseball and his team beat a D-1 school team!
