Summertime. Yippee!!

Well, it looks like summer is defiantly here!! This morning the calves went out into the field for the first time! It is quite a military procedure to get them out, as we have to drive them over the main road and the place where they have to cross is quite close to a bend in the road, on a cross road! Nothing like making things difficult for ourselves!

We did once try to get the cows over the road at a different point and then to run them down the road to the field gate, but some of the cows didn't quite understand what they were supposed to do and ran in different directions! A couple ended up on the beautifully manicured lawn of a neighbour, another attempted to make a bid for freedom, and headed towards the nearest town! Father in law had to commandeer a bike from a passing cyclist to enable him to get past the run away in order to drive it back towards the field! All of this was going on around corners whilst I was left standing in the middle of the road stopping the traffic in case they ended up with a cow/farmer on a bike as a bonnet badge! (Some of the drivers were clearly not locals and had never seen anything like the goings on. We even had some one videoing it all!!)

This morning we had tractors blocking the lane to hold up cars and stop the calves getting past (in theory!) Middle son and Youngest son positioned themselves with new farm worker, whilst the outlaws took one side of the main road each. Baby girl and myself had the job of driving the calves from the yard to the field!

Everything went well as the calves were skipping down the fence lined track - until we came to the road crossing bit! That's when all hell broke loose and calves scattered everywhere, like thrown confetti in the wind! After what seemed like forever (but was in fact no more than a minute), the final calf was extracted from the hedge and safely left running free in the long lush grass.

Let's just keep our fingers crossed for no thunder storms over the next few weeks, or at least until the babies have gotten used to being out. Last years calves ended up running along the cliff top, heading for the village at 3am! Hubby and myself were blissfully unaware of this, fast asleep in our beds, until there was a banging on the door and 2 police men were standing there as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes! It was an interesting job, as last years calves were more black, than black and white and we have no street lights around here! Ho hum!