Animal Farm

The cows and their calves have grown braver over the past few weeks.  Most mornings we find them by the fence and we patiently coax the curious calves over to check us out.

Little Willy is the biggest and bravest of the 3 and usually the first to come over.

Mama Cocoa was a little curious too.  She was eyeing up that handful of long grass in Keziah's hand.

Stretching as far as possible without taking another step forward - because these two cow feeders look far too dangerous, I guess.

Finally, Russell comes close enough to sniff out Micah's hand.

And Micah gets a few strokes of the calf's nose before he scampers away.

All the while there were some other friends in the pasture - 3 deer hanging out by the back fence.  The cows didn't seem too bothered by the visitors.

Unfortunately, this lot of cattle was moved out of here yesterday.  Dad Toews made an agreement with a neighbour down the road to keep them in his pasture for a couple of months.  This will allow our pasture to heal and the grass to fill in, plus our cows will be living with a bull who will (hopefully) impregnate them the old-fashioned way.

And the cows aren't the only ones who've left the farm.  Our 2 cats have both disappeared in the last several weeks.  First the old farm-cat Mindy (who "came" with the farm) and then our new cat Moses who wasn't even a year yet.  With our small house space it just wasn't working well for us to have them inside at night.  So as soon as the weather turned nice we made them go outside at night.  This is what probably led to their demise what with all the coyotes in the area.

So our farm animal count has gone from 8 to 0.  A little sad for the kids.  We're already planning on getting another cat or 2.  And there has even been some talk about getting a puppy...

Meanwhile, we'll be missing our 3 handsome boys.