Mr. Boo is hearding cows?

I took a business trip last week, and left Bob at home to feed the cows and keep an eye on the ranch. I was scheduled to give two assemblies all about my two books, at two different elementary schools in Arroyo Grande. One Thursday afternoon, and the other Friday afternoon.

I received a couple of calls from Bob telling me how smoothly everything was going. These are encouraging calls when one is three hours away from home. Bob knows all the particulars about feeding and keeping an eye on Mr. Boo and our fences. And he knows all about the big bull liking to go visiting our pretty and enticing neighbors. And he knows what to do about it if he does wander.

This morning, however, I got a different kind of call from Bob. I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty when he started with, “Would you like to hear an interesting story?”

Calls such as this always seem to lead to problems, often including repair on our fences. Of course, I encouraged Bob to relate his tale.

As he rolled up the driveway this morning, he glanced toward the barn. My cows are always gathered around the barn, often standing inside at the manger, impatient for someone to throw them the hay.

He looked toward the barn, only to discover a great emptiness. There were no cows in the corral, nor near the barn. They were not standing around in the pasture. Not even one.

Old Momma was up at the house waiting for someone to pour her grain in the pan, and the big red Santa Gertrudis cow was grazing near the Olive tree. Otherwise, there were no other cattle in sight.

Worried, Bob jumped on the quad and roared out toward the back field. This was a most unusual situation, and he hoped everything was OK.

When he turned through the gate, he was surprised to find our herd of cows standing as a group, in the corner, but outside the fence. As he drove toward them, he was even more surprised to find Mr. Boo standing on the hill above them. Apparently the big bull herded his cows into the corner and was holding them there, waiting for Bob to appear and open the gate so he could drive them back into my field.

When Bob opened the gate, Mr. Boo was anxious to be sociable. He left his post holding the cows in the corner, and walked over to Bob. Several licks later, plus a few scratches from Bob, the cows discovered Boo was not holding them in the corner. When the cows began to drift away, Bob jumped on the quad to get in front of them.

As soon as Bob hurried to turn the cows, Mr. Boo turned and went through the gate mumbling as he walked. With Bob pushing the cows from behind, they followed in line behind their herd sire, trooping through the opening and back into our field. Mr. Boo, like the Pied Piper, led them across to the gate, then turned down toward the barn, mumbling all the time.

Obviously there had to be a sizeable hole in the fence, if all the cows were out. It had to be somewhere out of sight. Bob didn’t take time to find out where, or how big it was, for Boo and his cows were making their way to the barn. They were ready to eat.

With hay in the manger, Boo and his cows were content. They ate their breakfast, while Bob returned to the back field to look for the hole. As you can see from the picture above, there were at least four posts either broken or pushed down.

There’s something unusual about this picture you should notice. The posts are leaning in the wrong direction. If Boo pushed on the fence, the posts should be leaning uphill, not angling down the slope.

The picture was taken by Bob from inside my back field, looking uphill at the fence. To get to the spot above the fence where Mr. Boo was holding all the cows, they would have had to walk out of our pasture by crossing over the fence, walking uphill.

Now the story gets a even more interesting. There were no neighbor cattle anywhere on the side of the hill to entice Mr. Boo to go visiting. My neighbor’s cows had all walked up the road toward the mine, and had gone over the top of the hill into the eastern part of that field. They were completely out of sight. Yet, when Bob arrived, almost my entire herd were out in the neighbor’s field, where Mr. Boo herded them into the corner.

I have a rather large black yearling bull who might be willing to argue across a fence with his father. But he’s been running with my cows all the time, and not out in the next field. This morning there were no enticing heifers to attract the interest of either Mr. Boo, or the big yearling.

There’s a real mystery surrounding why the posts are pointing downhill. Something large enough to bend the posts over from above the fence line had to do the pushing. But who was that?

Neither Mr. Boo nor the black yearling bull would, or could, have reached out and pulled the posts in the direction they are pointing now. They both have heads and shoulders that would push nicely if they were above the fence. But they were below it. They certainly don’t have hands to pull. So who, or what, pushed from the uphill side?