STORY-1
When you raise livestock, it’s pretty much guaranteed that they are going to get out of the pasture from time to time. We build fences to be as strong as possible, but when you are combating Mother Nature and 1,300-pound animals, you won’t always going to win.
Another guarantee is that the livestock will never bust through the fence on a beautiful, sunny, 60°F. day. You will only get a
call from your neighbor about your cattle wandering around in their yard on a day like today: cold, rainy, and with a thick coating of dense fog just to up the ante. Oh – did I forget to mention that the mild-tempered cows are never the ones that break out, either? Oh, no. That would be too easy.
At the end of the day, I love my job. But, man, some days I sure do wish I could have a little sit-down with our cows to lay down some ground rules. A code of conduct, if you will. Everyone else gets to have one of those with their coworkers, why can’t we? It would be pretty simple: Don’t break out of the pasture, stop leaning on the fence we just built, and if you’re going to need assistance giving birth, a quick heads-up would be nice.
But, alas, the cows have a full day of grazing and fence-leaning ahead and can’t fit a meeting with me into their schedules. So, I’m off to fix the fence.