The English Paysanne

Yesterday it was time to move the cows to a new field at La Contie. With amazing weather it was hot work marking out the electric fence to keep them in, it also was a large area with old fencing needing to come down too. The cows behaved impeccably, as usual Portiche was lagging behind, she has had a bad limp for a few days but is now on stable on four hoofs. Being an old girl she is more of a plodder, preferring her own company, just as well she has three fields to mooch around in now and play cow n seek with farmer J.

Today in two trips some of the cows and their calves were taken to summer grazing at La Conite, about 5kms from our farm. It   was   not   an   easy   manouver. Cows who are too excitable and wild stayed behind here and were let out first with their calves to start nibbling their way through the lush spring grass. That bit was easy. The hard bit came in ushering the others into the trailer when really they were not that sure about it, possibly due to infrequency they go out for a drive around the countryside. It took many hours and hard graft for farmer J in the way of putting a cord round their horns and pulling them in (then securing them so they don't come out again. So now all cows are out to grass, no morning or evening feeding routine but of course there will be new routine of summer jobs to do.

The cows at La Contie came home this morning, not that they really wanted to. It took three attempts and a bit of running to get them in a position where they could be ushered into the metal field park which contains them ready to go into the trailer. This is where the seven decided they didn't want to be contained making a break for it. Second attempt was having a long line of rope to bring them down from the hill, I was in place to stop them going through an opening to another field, I failed at my task as the seven came running towards me on a break out mission - I was not going to argue with them and let them through as they flung their legs in the air kicking. Last attempt was an electric fence put up (but not on, which the cows didn't know) to lead them along with farmer J enticing them back again with a bucket of food - and yes before you say you should of done that in the first place we did with individual buckets but today they went all  ...

A moment from the week at La Singlarie Walking the cattle to their next field.Thankfully they were very well behaved as eight leads would of got into a terrible tangle. (Three with the dogs is bad enough)

A moment from the week at La Singlarie You never know who your going to meet on the back road to La Contie. This is Dexter who had walked down from his stables to what is going on down in the fields. We were the lucky ones to find him in the road and spend time waiting for his owner to come and get him.

Another lucky four of our herd left La Singlarie for the 7 km drive to our rented land at La Contie for a summer break of  eating grass and relaxing listening to the birds and wildlife, for that's all you can really hear in this peaceful part of the Aveyron, there is an occasional car or tractor that passes by but not a lot else. Unlike the first four that left these four, 2 cows and 2 young steers took no time at all getting into the trailer where they walked calmly in to eat the hay we had put down.Once shut in they were off on their travels.Once at the end they were happy to leave walking down the ramp into the field to meet Mona our eldest and chief cow with 3 steers. Mona gave a bit of chasing around gaining her authority over the newbies but after a few minutes all calmed down and got down to being a small herd and munching the grass left over from being cut for hay before all are moved in a couple of days to a new field, just have to put up more elect...