Monthly Archives: September 2008

Thelma and Louise – the characters!

I had two beef heifers named Thelma and Louise… Bet you’re wondering why I would name my beef cattle after movie characters and not food names… Well, living in Arizona… and knowing that they too will die in the end… the names just seemed appropriate! I just have to be sure to keep them away from the ol’ Thunderbird and the Grand Canyon so that I can enjoy their gift of meat!

Anyway… enough humor… on to more humor… Yesterday (Labor Day 2008) I was down doing morning chores when a friend stopped by to introduce us to her brother. We were side tracked, talking up a storm when I notice Louise, a Hereford cross, standing with her side to a section of the fence that I’d cut open in the past to let the cattle out into the back 2 acres to graze. I turned just in time to catch Thelma, a Black Angus cross, standing perpendicular to her and you could see the gears turning in her head… You see, just outside of that fence is a coyote fence… which consists of tee posts at 10′ on center running the length of the back pasture fence with six strands of electric fence giving it a height of about five feet. The hot fence runs parallel to the pasture fence but about 3′ outside the fence. This allows the coyote to run the wash out there and if they do become inspired to run and jump the electric fence they will come down between the electric fence and the 4′ field fence with barbed wire running 6″ above that. Coyote can’t jump 4 feet while standing still… they have to run at it to clear it… so once they clear the hot fence, they usually come down hitting their head into the field fence and then have to get back through the hot fence to get away… After a few zaps… they usually don’t return! Anyway… I digress…and apologize for doing so…

So, there stands Thelma with her eyes on the green grass out in the wash… Mind you we’re standing there yaking up a storm and haven’t yet fed the hay…. The next thing I know… Thelma is barreling towards Louise, head down like an experienced spanish bull… and PLOWS into Louise, lifting her off the ground and THROUGH the field fence as well as the six strands of Hot fence. Poor Louise landed out in the field bewildered as to what had just happened… Luckily, we had shut the hot fence off before starting chores or I fear we’d have had a whole lot more to fix then the six connections and the 10′ section of field fence…

Well, rather than chase Louise all around trying to get her back in and keep the others from getting out… we just let them all go out and graze until we tossed hay… then, of coarse, they all came running in… except Louise… who was too scared to go near the fence. After a little calling and a bit of herding we were able to get her in for breakfast… but it was a good lesson to feed the cows first and visit with the company after…

Hope you enjoyed the chuckle as much as we did… once the fencing was all fixed…

Have a great day…

Nance