Yesterday, Lynne looked out the window toward the meadow and saw that a bunch of cows were back. They have been around for a couple of weeks, but mostly down in the bottom of the valley where we can hear them, but not see them and surely not try to round them up.

We let Bella and Hailey out. Hailey likes to bark when she is excited. She gets excited just going outside. I'm not sure she ever even saw the cows, but the noise she made along with Bella's attempt at herding the cows drove them out of the meadow.

At first, most ran down into the valley. But, after a while they all came back up and crossed the meadow to our neighbor's land.

The phone rang. It was David. "We got about 12 cows here at the house! We are trying to drive them up to the road and then south through the gate and onto forest land. You need to get up there and keep them from going back into your woods and meadow."

So, Lynne and I jumped in the Ranger and took off. Well, Destin joined us, reluctantly. By the time we got to the road, we could see David herding the cows with his jeep across our south parcel toward forest land, so they had not come back toward our meadow.

We joined the chase and drove the Ranger up to where there is a gate in a barbed wire fence that marks the boundary between private land and the forest. Lynne and I opened the gate so it was ready for the cows.

Meatime, David and Deb were herding the cows on foot now. Deb, had just unsaddled her horse or this job would have been easier. They had their Austrian Shepherd, Shilo, with them. Not sure if he helped any, but he added to noise and general fun time we were all having. Between me, David and Deb, we managed to slowly move the cows toward the gate. One cow spooked and went right through the barbed wire fence! Another refused to join the herd and went the opposite direction. The cows came to the cattle guard on the road and milled around some. We just let them figure out on their own that there was an open gate adjacent to the cattle guard. Sure enough, as soon as one cow figured it out, the others followed.

That's 11 on the forest side of the fence, but one more looking on from a distance on the wrong side.

I think the three of us must have walked a mile or more back and forth and up and down to try to get that damned stupid cow pointed the right direction and moving along the fence line toward Lynne. I guess I got too close at one point and spooked her because she went right through the fence, breaking a post. At least all 12 were now on forest property. (We set the post up and repaired the fence the best we could.)

Destin was not sure what to think of all this. We never let him out of the Ranger, but he acted like he'd like to get in on the action. Maybe, someday.

I had sent an email to the cows' owner after we drove them out of our meadow. He was out of state but promised to have Richard come get the cows. I sent him a new email telling him where they were. But, I bet as I write this they are plotting on how to get back on our property.

When we got back to the house, there was a package that FedEx had delivered sitting on our stoop. We had to laugh at that. While we were out on our round-up, FedEx had driven in, delivered a package, and left.