"A Funny Thing Happened On The Way Home"....

Here is another Story I had written awhile back but thought you'd enjoy !!!
Thinking about Fall and the farm, really brought back alot of memories for me. Autumn has always been my favorite time of the year, but there is something about being on a Farm when the Seasons change that makes them stand out so much more. One of the obvious reasons being that there is always an air of "preparation"..Not always the cheerful, expectant type of preparations , such as the ones that take place around the Christmas Holidays, more like the "gotta hurry up and get this done before...."...type of preparations. Every season brought with it , it's own long list of "gotta get this done" chores, and Fall was no exception. Alot of people who have either been raised on or near a farm or know of people who have been, know that there is not alot of " recreational" time in this lifestyle. Yes, Farming isn't a type of job or career, it's a way of life. Well, especially if you are raising Dairy cattle, any small trip to the store or event means clock watching to get back home and "milk the cows".
After a few years (well more than a "few" ) My oldest son was mature enough to be a big help to his Dad especially when it came to chores and even some outdoor work . He learned to drive a tractor when he was 8 yrs. old and was an expert by the time he was 10. But sadly, my kids, especially the oldest, didn't get to do alot of activities that most of the other neighbor kids took for granted. We didn't go to the beach while Daddy was on vacation in the summer..those long, hot sweltering "dog days" were reseved for bailing hay. We didn't get to go skiing or snowboarding or just sit around on a cold winter weekend and enjoy football or a movie, those days were spent cutting and chopping and splitting wood or grinding feed for the next weeks chow .
After years of feeling like my children were going to grow up deprived and starved for normal experiences...I started to push the issue with Hubby that maybe we needed to make a point to get away as a family here and there and have some fun with the kids.
One perfectly beautiful mid Fall day, we decided to take the kids to our local Zoo for the afternoon, before it closed for the season... You can only imagine the excitement around my house that day, and I was worse than the kids.... Hubby got chores done and the outside work finished ( cleaning out the trenches and spreading the manuer on the fields...mmmmmm...LOL) with the help of our oldest and they rushed to the house for showers and off we went.
I had sooo much fun that day, and the kids even today, remember that ONE single day we had together to just stroll around and eat junk and ride the little train through the park and be a family.
Well, by the time we left to head home for chores , we were all wiped out and discussed how we would take a short nap upon arriving home and then head off to do the evening chores...Hubby and I agreed wholeheartedly that it was really worth the time and we would definately schedule more outings in the near future.
You know, Farmers really take pride in their hard work and one of the things that really is important in Farming is the need to have well built and maintained fences.... Being that we were fairly young and tried to be "up" on the latest in advances in agriculture, we invested alot of time and Money in high tinsel electric fencing. It was ritual every Spring to go out before the cattle were allowed to roam out in the fenced off pastures in the warm months, to go out and make repairs to any weakened spots in the fencing. My hubby really prided himself in the fact that unlike many of our older and more "backwards" Farmer neighbors, we didn't have a problem with our cows jumping the fence or even casually strolling over any broken parts of the fence to run free in the neghborhood or get into the crops which grew a short distance form the pastures.He had learned from experience watching the antics of the neighbors herding their cows down the road after an "escape"...LOL....Well, we were nearing home that day when a familiar site came into view. "Road Apples"..... clumps of manuer left here and there on the sides and even down the middle of the road that lead to ours and our neighbors homes. Once again Hubby commented on how funny it was to watch the cows skip and prance after they escaped from the surrounding confines of the neighbors pastures. Cows aren't stupid really, they are like kids, if they see an opportunity, they're going to take it....We laughed and joked about how we missed the "show" and even took lighthearted bets as to who's cows "busted out"....As we got closer to our house we began to see a pattern and both of us had a very uneasy feeling begin to take root. We weren't far from our driveway when we noticed "piles of poop" either leading down the driveway(resembling the crumbs left by Hansel and Gretel to find their way home...LOL) or maybe ( we were desperate by this time) they were leading "UP" the driveway by some stray cattle that decided to visit our Farm that afternoon????
Once we were directly in front of our barn we were now sure of what we surely didn't want to admit to....It had been our Bovine Bad Girls that had taken the stroll all over the neighborhood that day...!!!!!
Our neighbors ( God Bless them !) had witnessed the parade and came to the rescue...rounded up the cows and secured the small front door of the barn and the gate from the lane to the back of the barn, which had been left ajar by a very excited 10 year old wanting to get up to the house in a hurry for his long awaited trip to the Zoo....
Here, what had happened, is even though the large door to the front of the barn was closed,once the cows saw an opening, they went for it...See, cows have the the mentality of the movie "Field of Dreams"...if it's left open , they will go ( I know that's not how it went but close enough)...The cows had "pillaged and plundered" the feed carts and fresh hay bails that had been thrown down and stacked in preparation for the evening chores, before they decided to prominade, single file, through the small front door of the barn.
All this put a damper on our day of course, but sure did give us a chuckle later and now, a memory I have that still makes me giggle and also reminds me of a bible verse..." Pride goeth before a Fall".......Till next time....Robin