Bessy gets "married"!!!

 "Today's the day that Bessy's getting married!" 

Ellie but squealed with glee first thing in the morning 10 days before Christmas.  Finally, the long awaited day had arrived.  After much consideration, numerous phone calls made ( often without being returned) & multiple plans changed, Bessy was finally going out to a bull to well shall we just say " get married".  Our good friends Corrine & Damo were coming with a horse float that afternoon so we could take her the few kilometres down the highway to the farm where the 'groom' resides!!

After a long day of anticipation the sound of a car on our driveway brought us all outside.  We were a little worried about how we would get Miss Bessy into the float.  She'd never been in anything like it before.  We'd managed to put her into a small paddock earlier that day with very little coaxing, but being locked in there must have made her suspicious!  When the float was backed up to the gate she eyed it closely & very quickly decided not to cooperate with our coaxing  her.  Damo & Dave thought they'd better do something a bit more drastic & quickly before she tried to hoity toit it over the fence & we were chasing her around a paddock 20 times as large.  Thankfully jersey's are relatively small cows & 2 grown men are easily able to wrestle her, but she certainly didn't like having her fancy dancy ( decidedly too small for her) bright red halter put on ( she never was a halter girl, preferring the more freedom of a naked face.).  It was when Damo attached the rope to the halter that did it though.  She decided that she just wasn't going & in true teenage girl form threw herself onto her side.  Now this wasn't the slow & lazy lowering of the body onto bent legs & then rolling as you would expect of a cow, rather one second she was standing & the next she was lying on her side.  She wasn't going to budge anywhere!  

I promise she is alive here ~ I just managed to capture her blinking!

After they let her lie there for a few minutes pondering what we were to do were she not to co-operate (after all she still is a cow & weighs a lot & it's not like a sheep that you can just pick up & move).  They decided she'd carried on enough & to make her stand up using the lead rope.  Thankfully she co-operated.  It still wasn't easy getting her into the float.  If ever there was a reluctant bride, Miss Bess must take the cake.  She certainly didn't want to leave her beloved home here at Sunnyside.  A couple more less dramatic showing of will occured, but finally we won & she was loaded.  Off to meet her "groom"!!!

We let her out of the float near the water ~ it was away from the other cows & as we weren't sure how she would embalk, we'd rather do it without further distractions.  She was a good girl though.  Guess she really didn't like her trip because she came out of the float as quick as she could.  She decided that she didn't like us though & wouldn't return the halter.  Since we really didn't want her wearing it as beautiful as her "bridal headgear" was  Dave had to chase her to finally get it!

We drove her up the paddock  to meet the other cows.    She slowly made her way in such a laborous fashion that you would consider she was heading to her slaughter & not the joyful union we had been anticipating since purchasing her 20 months before.  Eventually she noticed the other cows.  She stopped & eyed them carefully.  

Being the self-professed expert in reading cows thoughts,  let me give you a step by step of what was going through her head at this point:

  "What on earth are these animals?"

"Nothing like them at home."

"They are so big & bulky, rather ugly I think."  

"Thankfully I'm the prettiest here" ( who knew cows were really vain????)  

"Why are they all looking at me?"  

"I know they're not sheep because they aren't wooly.... maybe big, big  pigs.  Imagine the pork you can get off one of those!."  

"Oh no, now they're getting too close, I'd better run." 

"What are these people thinking leaving me here with these things.  After all I'm really a person, not a cow ( all bottle fed animals think they are human & should be allowed right in the house) no matter that they put me into a paddock ~ they're lucky that DOCS hasn't found out yet.  Now they're going to desert me."  

"OH NO HERE COMES THAT BIG BLACK MALE THING.  HELP!!!"  

"Come BACK my humans!!! COME BACK NOW!!! "   

As we left  the sun was sinking into the horizon & our cow, the beautiful jersey, well she was still running, being chased by the whole herd.  I'm assuming she's stopped now,  either that or we'll have one very fit cow come March when we bring her home!!!

Hopefully sometime in spring we will  begin our dairying adventures right here at Sunnyside!  (So should you decide to visit then, please be prepared to do some milking & if you know how to, please come & show us !!)

The adventures continue...

Blessings

Joining in with the ladies for: