I awoke without many plans for the day. But I didn't get much reading in after all.
Before church, we noticed that Bitsy was missing. This was extremely unusual for her. I haven't seen her even go up the driveway on her own; she just hangs out at the trailers. Phil went up and found her on the road. A bit later, she was missing again, and I couldn't see her on the road. At this point, I was almost frantic. Would we have mongrel puppies, bred from the neighbor's mutt dogs?! We have yet to hear her bark, so if barking is an indicator of heat, I would not have that signal.
She was at the neighbor's, and I saw an American boxer running the other direction. Was I too late?! I know there are ways to stop pregnancy for cows (should a neighbor's substandard bull hop the fence and play with open cows); perhaps there are ways to cause early abortions in dogs? (And lest you think that's too harsh: far better to have day old puppy fertilized eggs die than have to deal with live mutt puppies later.)
One website had photos of the size of the vulva, and said that if a dog is in heat, you can stick a gloved finger in the vulva and it will pulse inward. In order to keep from absolutely panicking, I got my full-sleeve glove on (easily located in my newly cleaned barn), had Phil hold the dog, and got a fingertip in. No pulsing, from what I could tell.
I was much relieved. I had not expected Bitsy's fertility to be such a burden. Phil had often expressed a wish that he had left Chloe intact, and he is not excited about fixing Bitsy. I hope we can figure out how to manage her, and her fertility, well.
Later, I read more about dog heats. I've never had an intact female dog, and I had figured dogs were like people or cows, coming into heat about once a month for a day or two. I was quite wrong.
Dogs only ovulate every six months, and when they are in heat, it lasts two or three weeks. Apparently the dog will bleed for about two weeks, and when the blood stops, the dog ovulates.
This is all quite surprising, but rather reassuring. I have certainly not seen any blood, and Bitsy wasn't doing any of the signs of heat, like rubbing against our legs. No pack of eager males has come around the farm.
We opted not to go to lunch. A homemade Caesar salad with farm-grown lettuce sounded better to me than any restaurant meal. My lunch had to wait, though. When we got home, we found Snowman the bull and Bianca the no-longer-milking cow on the lam. (Which surprised me. I had thought only yesterday, "Now that I'm not milking, I can go days without seeing Bianca and the others. If they got out, it could be a long time before I noticed. Ha! As if they would get out.")
Hornless Catherine had declined to join them in their Great Escape, perhaps considering a time with hay, minerals, water, and no horned creatures to pressure her was a better prospect than whatever the outside world held. I was grateful.
From the looks of it, one of them had laid down in the shade right on the cattle panel. This popped the wire connectors, and then a gentle push opened the panel and let them free. We lost their tracks in the woods, but later realized that they had skirted the fence, then walked right down the road to the lower pasture, stood at the gate (probably looking at the cows on the other side of the fence), then wandered through the bottom land grazing. They were pretty full by the time we found them, not really interested in eating much, nor in running away.
While Ken and I kept an eye on them, Phil headed up to get tin snips to open a cattle panel, and an electric fence charger to corral Snowman. When he returned, he opened a panel, I grabbed Bianca's collar, and tugged her into the pen. We fixed that opening, and then had to manage Snowman.
He is, perhaps, the world's nicest bull. With Phil and I following him from behind, he gradually meandered along the fence. When he neared the gate, I hopped the fence, ran and opened the gate, and he walked right in to join the ladies. Clearly none were in heat, as he showed no sign of interest whatsoever. (Later, when we brought down hay, the eight girls were clustered and he was off wandering. Really: there is no one in heat.)
With all animals again under our control, we had to decide: what to do with them. Some breeders leave the bull with the cows and calves, figuring that, if you breed according to nature, there is no need to separate. But I don't know that our calves were bred according to nature, and other breeders have seven-month-olds get pregnant. I would prefer that not happen.
So we need to remove Snowman, but that requires wire stringing and another energizer. We talked through all the options at length, and finally decided that we would get new electric wire tomorrow, trusting that no one would be in heat for the next 24 hours, and, if someone does go into heat, that we would be okay with that. You can only do so much; sometimes we leave the results to God.
I realized, though, while traipsing through the woods, that this way of spending the day was not onerous. THAT was a huge shift in my thinking. Last year, when animals got out, I would think, "I cannot believe I'm spending my life chasing animals. Why am I here? What were we thinking?" The allure of a calm suburban life constantly called to me.
But today, it seemed natural. We want cows, and part of keeping cows (or animals in general) is that they escape sometimes, and so we deal with that. A breakthrough in how settled I am becoming in this life, I suppose. And, especially, thankfulness that the bull escaped while Phil was here. I didn't have to figure out how to corral him on my own.
To round out the random animal adventures, after dark, Phil and I went and did our best to round up the layer chicks. We probably caught about twenty. Phil caught his with his lightning fast reflexes. I caught mine because they would try to hide in the plastic wrapped peat bales, which didn't work very well for them. (At one point, I noticed little yellow feet poking out from under a plastic flap. Two Leghorns had hidden away under there, and they were so convinced they were invisible, they didn't even squawk when I grabbed them. Stunned, I'm sure.)
So that was my Mother's Day. Along with eggs, mustard greens, lettuce, peas, pork chops, and even strawberries from the land. A farmer's life for me.
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