Perfect Day According To Mike

It is never a good thing when the phone rings before you are out of bed.  That is confirmed when, within minutes, it rings again.  The first call was from Bruce's mom letting us know that there were heifers wandering around the yard here.  The second call was from Ed who had heifers heading for his place 1/4 mile north!  As Bruce was getting dressed Mike was already excited that there was something new going on!  Ed managed to get ahead of the group heading his way with his truck and  turned them back in our direction.  Bruce and Mike headed out on the 4 wheeler and herded them back towards home.   We live on a highway so Bruce's dad took the car out on the road to warn traffic and hopefully keep the heifers from heading west.  Our biggest fear is that Mike will run out ahead of the group and get hit by a car so Bruce made him lie down and let the heifers enter the road first.  By the time I got out of the house I could hear Bruce bringing them this way so I opened the gate into their yard and closed the gate that would have let them go back out to pasture.  Perhaps a half hour passed between phone calls and the heifers being back in their yard and none of the people involved were even winded! We are so incredibly spoiled.  If something happened to Mike I think we would have to sell everything because he is the only one who really knows how to move cattle around here!  Mike is  just like any border collie we have ever had.  The other day he got his foot stepped on by a cow when he was letting them out of the barn.  When he has free time he tends to limp.  When he is working he forgets he has a sore foot and runs with pure joy.  In the process of shutting gates I found his kong (toy) and I was holding it when he got done working.  He went limping into the barn to get a drink and then came back out, panting with his tongue hanging out 4 inches yet.  When he realized I had a kong he was ready for me to throw it, again running on all 4's.  Needless to say, I only threw it far enough that he would lay on the grass and rest for awhile and promised him once his tongue was back in his mouth we would play : )  It was pretty obvious by the time we were done that we have a heifer that is very actively in heat.  The fence was totally shorted out so Bruce had fencing added to his day before he even milked.  Mike's entertainment didn't end with the heifers. While Bruce was out on the 4 wheeler his phone rang.  The trucker we sell cattle through called to see if we had anyone we wanted to sell.  We are quite a ways out for them to come to and they were going by to pick up a cow close to us.  As it turned out, we had indeed planned on selling a cow this morning but hadn't gotten around to calling yet.  Mike got to go and put the steers in their pen, get the cows home from pasture and then move the steers out of their pen since we move cattle though that pen when we sell them.  He then got to move the cull cow out to the truck, put the steers back into their pen and then, after having a hose bath, got to take a nap while we milked : )  By the time the day was over we had 3 heifers in heat and 1 cow. 

Bruces other project of the day was getting our manure spreader cleaned up so it can be fixed.  We have 2 spreaders, one specifically for slop and one for solids like the pens with lots of bedding.  The solids spreader has several floor supports that have rusted through, causing the floor to sag.  Instead of Bruce spending his time trying to lay under it and weld he pressure washed it and then took it to the local machine shop to have it fixed.  Bruce struggles with the concept of having others do work he is perfectly capable of but he is also learning he has to pick where his time and energy can be used.