SO, I had this genius idea. Absolutely brilliant. I’d dip into my meagre savings and buy myself… a bull. Why not, right? I’ve got land. I’ve got heifers. I figured it was high time I explore the exciting, not-at-all-stressful world of breeding cattle, instead of buying other people’s cows and selling them off after a year or two. It’s simple economics. The bull’s not here yet—he arrives Tuesday—but I’m already regretting my decision. Let me set the stage. First, I had to separate the calves from their mothers because the calves aren’t old enough to be running with a bull yet. Separating them wasn’t hard, just time-consuming. The paddock fences are tight and hot, so I thought I was in the clear. Or so I thought. As expected, we were treated to an eardrum-shattering chorus of moos, which lasted many hours. The calves were not pleased with the new living arrangements, and I’m pretty sure their complaints could be heard from the next state over. It was quite surreal. Their moos echoed eerily around the nearby hills, and I was starting to feel like I was in a horror film. Then the inevitable happened. Pickles, my youngest calf, decided she’d had enough of this nonsense. She Houdini’d her way out of the calf paddock, bolted across the driveway, and launched herself through another fence. And back to her mother she went, faster than I could say, “Oh No!”. By now, it was getting dark. I stared at the fence, then at Pickles, and thought, "you know what? This is a tomorrow problem." Except, it wasn’t. At exactly 2:34 am, I was jolted awake by a noise. You know the kind—something that startles you out of sleep, but you’re too groggy to figure out what it actually was. Then I heard a crash. And another crash. From the front verandah. Now, for context, my verandah is a solid two meters off the ground. So, I threw on some clothes (probably inside out, let’s be real), grabbed a torch and a very unimpressed attitude, and told my daughter to lock the door behind me. I tip-toed around to the front verandah, and there in front of me was the intruder. Not human, but another calf. And what was he doing? Munching through all my potted tomato and capsicum plants. I was not impressed. They were the very plants I had lovingly planted into pots after losing all my veggie starts in the Great Flying Greenhouse Debacle of September 2024 - another story. An hour later, I had it back with the calves. I went back to bed, feeling like I’d won a small victory. That feeling lasted approximately two hours. It was almost 5:00am when Panda made another break for it. This time, even more determined and craftier. I swear I saw it smirking. It took me twice as long to wrangle it back where it belonged. By the time I trudged back to the house, I was too tired to be mad. Too resigned to fight fate. Clearly, I was not the one in charge here. Pickles is still in the grown-ups’ paddock, looking smug and completely unfazed by the chaos she’s caused. At some point today, I have to figure out how to extract her without sparking another round of drama. Meanwhile, I am picking the bull up on Tuesday, along with three more heifer calves. Which means I have roughly four more days to restore order. Have I done the right thing, buying this bull? Time will tell. One thing’s for sure—I see another steep learning curve in my future. In fact, life on the homestead is a never-ending learning curve. And it’s certainly never boring. Until next time.
