I accidentally let the cows into our house yard again today.

I was going to say this only happens when I'm home by myself, but my wife was very quick to remind me of the time I absently drove off to Melbourne for a few days, and left the gate wide open. By the time she'd realized what I had done all of the cows were cavorting in the yard and she had to get help to remove them. But I digress....

The times it has happened before, its usually me who does it. And I am usually by myself. The cows know its not allowed, and they run and dodge me when I try and shoo them out. And while I am chasing one cow, another one is sneaking back in, or moving to a more obscure corner. The first time, I found myself running around for 3/4 of an hour making no progress, other than more damage to the orchard as they smashed their way around and about.

I stopped running and went off to think for awhile. And came back with the long pressure hose. I dragged it to the end of the garden, then worked my way back. Any cow within reach was squirted with water, and they hated it. Bit by bit I inched them out of the yard, and with exhausted satisfaction shut the gate.

So, knowing the surprise factor was what I needed, the next time it happened, I grabbed the lightweight aluminium ladder. Using it like some monstrous percussion instrument I advanced on the cows clanking the legs together. Again, they hated it, and ran off....demonstrating they had known all along EXACTLY where the exit was.

Today it was the two biggest cows, and the bull. I approached them and he looked me up and down and went back to eating. No chasing him out with a bit of arm-waving.

The ladder was elsewhere, the hose was also somewhere inconvenient. I looked around. Aha! We store our oil in metallicized plastic bags. Like a wine cask bladder, except 220 litres with industrial strength input/output openings. They are a single use item, as I have no way of cleaning them and getting all the dirty water out, but they are expensive and seem like they should be useful for something... so I've kept them. (For example, they could be used in a wicking bed....?)

There's a stack of them by the shed. I had thought about tying them to a fruit tree as a bird scarer, so I had inflated it like a balloon, then didn't follow through. So I grabbed that. It's about the same size as me and I advanced on the bull, wobbling the bag and jerking it around. He looked around...and freaked. His ears flapped, and he went from zero to flat out in 10 seconds. The black cow looked at him, then me as I advanced on her, and she bolted too, smashing her way along the fenceline and plowing through the fruit tree branches. The red cow had retreated the other way, further into the yard, so I went around and got behind her. Again, she took off as if chased by the devil. Joyfully my kelpie followed behind, snapping at her heels, and claiming all the credit when I got to the gate.

Half a kilometre down the road the cattle had regrouped and were staring at me. You know when a dog has done something bad and you say "Come here!", and he looks at you and doesn't move....? That's what they looked like.

Guilty cattle not coming near me

I'll need to get a bucket of soil and backfill. With all the rain the ground is incredibly soft. A bull accelerating to top speed makes a mighty big footprint in soft dirt.