Epiphany and Cattle Round Up

Hello there.  It's me, Marissa. . . you know, the one that occasionally posts things to this blog.  I have this bad habit of writing entries and never posting them.  I keep telling myself that when I get caught up-to-date on them, then I can post them all and just work on keeping things current.  Well, I had this epiphany.  Except for the year before I went on a mission, I have always played catch-up in my journal and, as this is basically a journal, why would it be any different?  Self, I thought, you don't want to disappoint your two followers.  It is time to make a change!  That's a lie.  It went more like this:  Self, if you spend all your time catching up on the past you might forget the moments that you are experiencing right now.  It was after that thought I concluded I needed to go about this blog stuff in a new way.  The new plan is to pick up where I am now in life and between posts of my awesome experiences (living at home, working on the farm & ranch - I know the excitement may be too much to read any single posting at once, but I cannot apologize for the incredibleness that surrounds me) I'll throw in some blasts from the past.

As far as the current happenings. . . today we worked to round up cattle from the pasture so we can move them out to the desert for the summer tomorrow.  When I say 'worked to round up' I mean FarmerBoy fed them in a fenced up area and then closed the gates. There were only 4 cows and, maybe, 20 calves that did not join the herd so FarmerBoy, FarmerDad, HiredHandR, and I jumped in the truck and headed to the east to encourage them.  Once we got them moving to the west, FarmerBoy and I walked behind them to keep them focused on our their goal.  FarmerDad and HiredHandR used the truck to cut off any independent thinking bovine in the group and send them back our way - although that really only happened right at the end.

When there was no longer a question that we were going to pen this group up too, one cow, that we were surprised stuck with the rest that long, decided that she and her baby were done being followers.  We tried to stop her but in the end I let her and her calf past me.  I don't like to get in the way of mothers on a mission (esp when there is a crazed look in their eyes).  The way I see it, if human mothers can get surges of adrenaline that enable them to throw cars off their children then I do not want to get in the way of 1000+ pound animal that has decided her newborn is endangered.  Hopefully, we will catch her when she comes to get water in the morning.

All in all, it went quite well and did not take us long (sans the time FarmerBoy put into feeding the herd and closing the gates).  Here's to hoping tomorrow goes even better!