Pastures are a cow’s summer dream. They love them so much that each year we have a different experience bringing them back home for the winter. By different, I mean difficult. Sometimes it feels like herding cats (sorry to my cat loving sisters!).

This year hauling home from one pasture was a surprising switch and quite unplanned. Steve had began soybean harvest, so in preparation we had been “baiting” the cows to the entrance of the pasture with buckets of feed. We planned to continue doing this each day until we found a time that worked with harvest to load and haul.

Neighbor Albert and I arrived at the pasture & set up the chute and corral with a crowd of calves & cows looking on. we left, we decided to spread out the buckets of feed for that day inside the newly set up gates.

What happened next was a welcome sight. Every cow marched right in and all but three calves followed quickly. With little effort we were able to get them all in the corral. Our mouths dropped as we closed and tied up the gates. I picked up the phone and after a short conversation and shared amazement with Steve I told Bert., “I guess we are hauling today!”. What was meant to be just a day to set up the corral turned into go time!

The next hurdle when hauling cattle home is loading them onto the trailer. There is no sorting or pairing up the cows and calves, it is just a load who goes type of deal. Sometimes this leads to unwillingness by cows when their calves don’t want to follow. Not that day! The first load of cattle went on the trailer with a moderate effort and we jumped in the truck and headed towards home.

A big (and sometimes realized) fear is that the cattle waiting to be loaded will find a way out of the corral. Their preferred methods are jumping or putting their head down and breaking apart the gates. We normally have someone stay behind and stand guard but not this year. This kept running through my mind until we returned and saw cows calmly grazing and calves laying down in the corral!

The second and third loads were loaded and home soon after. I think the fact that I took ZERO pictures and video to share with you tells you how quickly we were able to get this big task done... Or maybe it was because I was in shock!

This picture of the pasture, trailer and corral says it all. Empty but it gives a feeling of great satisfaction.