The call came around 2:30 p.m., around the time I was trying to put together the previous edition of this farm newspaper, for the Christmas season of 2011.
“The heifers are out. They’re in the neighbour’s field.”
Living, as we do, on a concession block of land that has been, aside from our own property, denuded of fencerows, that immediately meant the heifers could be in just about any neighbour’s field from here to town. Or on the roadways — not so busy; or perhaps busy — in between.
So, home I scuttled, dress shoes and all. Noticing a cluster of vehicles parked atop the bridge over the creek at the south end of the property, I sped past the homestead, jammed on the brakes, and erupted out into the neighbour’s (the immediate neighbour’s, it thankfully turned out) plowed field.
Given the seemingly unceasing freeze/thaw cycle to which we’ve been subjected this so-called winter, it was fortuitous (remember, I said “dress shoes and all”) that the field was still (barely) frozen on that day. At least it was frozen on the tops of the furrows; if you kept to the tops, you wouldn’t sink into heavy clay, and subsequently drag it out with your shoe to add half a pound per step to your progress.
Family members had convinced the eight escaped cattle into a group near a small cluster of trees. We attempted to corral them back onto our property, but first two, then three, then several more bolted in different directions.
Long story short: I sprinted in and out of the creek to wrangle one group of three over a fence and back onto our property; my sister carefully led another group of three back the way they had originally come (past the downed electric wire which allowed them to escape in the first place); and the other two ran most of the way to Uniondale before finally being convinced to return home.
The whole episode put an emphasis on my belief that we needed to decrease the number of animals in the barn. Which begins the story of the second bovine-related adventure in which I partook over the recent holidays.
A neighbour, half-way into town from where we live, eventually agreed — after much persuasion — to purchase three three-week-old bull calves to raise in the small barn on his acreage. At the time of the handshake deal, it was agreed that I would deliver the animals using my sister’s pick-up truck, which has a detachable rack used often for trucking sheep.
Unfortunately, it took a few days for the neighbour to get the barn prepared for occupation by three bull calves. By the time the call came that the barn was ready, my sister had vacated the southwestern portion of the province for meetings somewhere near Timbuktu. And she had taken her truck with her.
“Why not use our truck?”  I thought. “It’s big enough, if we flip up the bench seat in the back of the king cab, all three calves would fit in nicely. And they wouldn’t be able to turn around.”
Now, in these very pages of the Regional Country News, not so many years ago, esteemed columnist Bob Reid had written about a similarly ill-advised attempt to transport a calf by pick-up truck. And I remembered this column intricately, even as I uttered these words to myself. But, in my haste to empty the barn of three hungry, energetic calves, I was able to rationalize.
Bob Reid, after all, lives in Punkydoodles Corners. I have no idea where he was going that day he transported the calf in his pick-up, but Punkydoodles Corners is riddled with busy roads. There are cars and trucks whizzing everywhere in that town.
Here, near Uniondale, the pace of life is much slower. I figured, during the short trip up the road and around two corners (including a very short stretch of Highway 7), we might encounter one vehicle. So I figured we’d be safe.
I did heed his column, however, in one way: instead of driving myself, I enlisted the help of my father — just in case I needed to keep one of the calves at bay at some time during the journey.
The problem with that enlistment was that it caused the farm dog — who normally avoids trips in vehicles due to a tendency towards motion sickness — to become acutely aware that something exciting was going on. After we got the three calves loaded — angle-style, shoulder-to-head, as in a herringbone parlour —and pulled out onto the road, the dog decided he would chase after us to take part in the action.
With no one home to keep him there, we decided we’d have to open the front passenger door and let him come as well.
After much licking of the driver’s (my father’s) ears and defiling of various parts of the truck interior (despite a feeble attempt as using a tarp for protection), we arrived at my friend’s barn. When I next saw him at the arena, he lamented that his wife — who was there when we delivered the animals — didn’t have a video camera to record the six mammals (three calves, two humans and one dog) erupt from the stinky pick-up almost as soon as it stopped at the barn door.
Next time, remind me to take Bob Reid’s columns more seriously.