by Jan Fielden
We were talking over the weekend about the early years of the Red Oak Ranch. Jake Baker was leasing the land at the time and had some cows on it. He helped out The Colonel and was helped out himself by The Colonel.
The house hadn’t been built yet so Mr. Baker kept an eye on things. Mr. Baker, it seems, had an easygoing way of dealing with things or even reactions to things. He told the Colonel that sometimes his cows would get out of the fences but after a while they would walk over to some other land that was owned by the Bakers. He referred to it as “going home”.
One of the reasons we probably started this conversation was we ended up with some calves in our pasture that didn’t belong here! We were told there was a heifer and two bulls, although we could only find one bull. The ones we found had ear tags from the sale barn. They seemed to like the pasture and the herd they had joined up with.
We were able to get the heifer returned to the rightful owner but the bull would not come in to the trap with the rest of herd. Just like a bull. Not only do they walk slowly but also they are more suspicious of the trap than anyone else. The Colonel tried everything to get the bull calf in but to no avail. Of course this is a bad time anyway because of all the grass…they don’t want any hay to eat but they were not too interested in cubes either.
The chase is still on but I expect sooner or later the horses will come and round that little calf up and maybe even find the other one. Of course, I always say all animals love it at the Red Oak Ranch, even if they don’t actually belong here!
