Late night cattle drive

When the phone rang at 11:48 last night, I knew it could mean only one thing...cows were out. Actually, eight of the heifers in the pasture right next to my house had been spooked or ran through the fence by something and had high-tailed it down the road. After an initial search, we hadn't found the heifers but did find where they tore down their fence. We decided to give finding them one more try before we called it off until daylight. About three miles down the road we finally found them and got them turned back around. Luckily for us, they never strayed from the right-of-way on the way back and we never met a vehicle either. We had them back in their pen about a quarter 'til two this morning. Despite the time of night and the distance, this was actually a pretty easy "cattle drive" compared to some of the wild ones we've had in the past.

The week ahead

I don't think we'll run out of things to do this coming week. If all goes as planned (though it seldom does):

• We should finish chopping our corn this afternoon. That means spending time tomorrow covering our silage pit. If not, we'll be busy fixing another breakdown.
  
• We're due to weigh milk this week, if we can get our schedule coordinated with the tester.
• We need to rebuild a few fences, especially one around the pond in our milk cow pasture.
• A pretty fair stand of signalgrass has come up in our wheat fields, and would make good hay. We'll work towards cutting and baling it if they knock back the rain chances (we'll gladly take the rain, though).
• Speaking of wheat, Dad and I will start deciding how many acres of wheat, oats, and ryegrass we'll need to plant in a few weeks, as well as the fertilizer and tillage requirements.
  
• I need to spray some herbicide in a few places and kill weeds.
  
• Nights this week will also be busy, as we've got a service at our church tonight, our county's Farmers Federation's annual meeting Tuesday night, we'll go watch our beloved Mississippi State Bulldogs take their annual beating from LSU on Thursday, and then Friday I believe our hometown high school will open their football season at home.