“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”
~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
I was hoping to be the bearer of good news this morning.
I was planning to tell you that Snubby-Nose, the bossy bully cow I wrote about a few days ago, is now happily ensconced in a new home on someone else’s farm. There was no way we could let her stay here after the rest of the herd rejected her and began ganging up on her to stop her bullying ways.
Yesterday all we needed to do was push her up the hill from the river flats and into the cattle yards. This usually involves us walking the paddock with the cattle (or animal) and pushing them (we don’t actually ‘push’, that’s just a cattlework term – we use our body proximity to motivate the cattle to walk forward by standing slightly behind or to the flank of them) in the direction we need them to go, using a dog if they need a little encouragement to move in a particular direction. I knew it was too much ground for Ben and Harry-dog and I to cover if the cow picked up speed, so Ben called up a mate with trained dogs and a good horse. We’ve worked together before and always had good results.
It should have been a simple operation to get Snubby-Nose up to the yards and onto a truck.
I should have remembered that things that appear simple rarely are…
Snubby-Nose didn’t want to co-operate. She charged off into bushes and down ravines where the men and horse couldn’t follow.
She outwitted the dogs, and hurled them around like soft toys. (No-one was hurt, but it did get a bit dramatic.)
Finally she retreated to the deepest part of the river, forcing the horse and dogs to swim around her until everyone was exhausted.
Here she looks more like a cranky crocodile (and truly she was channeling that kind of evil vibe!) The dark stain in the water is the mud she is churning up as she swims. There was a deep hole there into which she was trying to lure the horse.
We gave up.
She won.
At last glance Snubby-Nose was back on the river flats, munching contentedly. This cow has no immediate plans for being moved on. Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn girl.
We’ll give ourselves a rest and have a rethink.Then it will be on for Round Two.
I’m thinking more horses, motorbikes, a cunning vet with a tranquiliser gun and a helicopter to airlift Queen Snubby-Nose to anywhere else.
Farm life. Ah, the tranquility!
