Cows On The Lam

One week ago today, the kids and I met Jed in town for dinner.  Afterward, Jed had to meet with the new renters at our old house and then he was going to swing by Harbor Freight because he had a coupon that was burning a hole in his pocket.  I took the kids home and before we could even settle in, a neighbor pulled into our driveway to let us know that our cows were missing.  

I guess while we were gone, they had escaped by swimming around the fence in the pond, wandered aimlessly through the neighborhood before hang out on this guys property, where he promptly took some selfies with them (so he told me) before coming to alert us.  

I drove over to his place but they had disappeared into the copious scrub brush that is our neighborhood's natural habitat.  I had called Jed on my way to let him know what was going on, he was on his way but was a good 40 minutes to an hour away.  Daylight was fading fast.  

He got home at dusk, drove around with a flashlight for a while but quickly realized that it was a lost cause.  

No biggie, he could look for them tomorrow morning, right?!  Um, not exactly.  He was scheduled to flight out to Chicago, again, at 4am the next morning!  Fortunately Jed was able to work it out so he could postpone his flight until later in the evening on Tuesday.  We both went to bed optimistic that we'd find the cows in one of our neighbors yards in the morning. 

Not so much, Jed drove around on the ATV and I took the kids around the neighborhood in the van and began to panic as I noticed that many of our neighbor's properties were not fenced and opened up into the large wilderness of county land that surrounds us. I began to think we may have introduced the first population of wild zebu into the Central Florida wild!  

We posted signs around our neighborhood and Jed asked anyone he ran into if they had seen our small herd.  Some had seen them and a few even tried to corral them for us but with no luck.  

Jed's flight time quickly approached and we hadn't even had a glimpse of the cows!  He had no choice but to call it a day and head to the airport.  His brother had agreed to come out and help if a neighbor happened to come upon the cows while Jed was away.  

I'm not going to lie, I secretly hoped that they wouldn't be spotted until Jed got back.  At 7 months pregnant and with little experience in bovine herding, I had no desire to head up the recovery expedition.  Alas, Wednesday morning a neighbor found them hanging out in his backyard and gave us a call.  I called my brother in law who agreed to head out when he was done with work.  

That evening, Jay, Jon, Katherine (Jon's girlfriend) and Jamie came over. The plan was for Jamie to watch the kids while I tried to lure Rhett back with donuts while the other two followed.  

Things were going as planned until two things happened, a neighbor's dog, came running at us, spooking Scarlett and Major and that prompted Jay to walk over which sent Rhett, shooting off into the woods/swamp. 

I was reluctant to follow but I didn't want to lose them.  Jay and I trudged the line where the pond met the woods.  Although I figured the stampeding cattle would have spooked any wildlife, I still prayed that I wouldn't run into any gators or cottonmouths!  

We chased them around a swampy, fenced in field, trying to rope Major, hoping that if we could get him his parents would follow us home. Finally the three of them jumped a fence, and ended up running to another neighbor's property.  This neighbor happened to be not only a police officer who had just gotten home but a mounted officer with the right kind of ropes for lassoing!  We all lamented that he didn't have his horse with him! :)  

The next 2 or so hours were exhausting.  We chased the cows from one side of their yard to the other! Finally out of pure desperation, Jay, the police officer and Jon tackled Scarlett to the ground and wrestled a rope onto her.  They tied the rope to the ATV and gently lead her home.  Unbelievably, Rhett and Major took off running in front of her, went down the road (about a half mile), to our driveway and right into our yard where they waited for us.     

We're keeping them in our backyard for right now, until Jed has time to work on the fencing over in the pasture by the pond. 

Jay off in the distance, trying to catch Major.  

No, my water didn't break, I went for a brisk jog through the swamp. 

Just taking a leisurely walk through the neighbors yard. 

On their way home.  

Consoling Ourselves

When Jed travels we treat ourselves by going out to eat for one of our meals!  Jed has been traveling quite a bit lately so this last time we not only ate out but we had ice cream for dinner!  It's not as good as having daddy home but I think they enjoyed it! 

River Rats!

It's the end of our college summer league baseball season and we've once again enjoyed watching them play.  

Well, Jed and Evan have enjoyed watching them play while the younger kids and I have enjoyed frequent visits to the concession stand. :)  

We allowed Ford to join his big brothers in running the bases this year, so cute to watch! 

 Evan and Seth were chosen to play a game on the field in between innings.  They had to unfold frozen solid tshirts and whoever won got a Menchies giftcard! 

Seth won hands down!  Way to go! 

We can't wait until next season! Go Rats!  

Did I mention....

Our brood is expanding!  I announced it on a facebook a while ago but forgot about my blog, which seems to be a bit of a problem these days. Oops. 

 I'm due October 11th! Things have been normal and we're both healthy so not much to report!  The weeks are flying by which I'm thankful for.  

The kids are thrilled! The boys know whats coming and can't wait. They really enjoyed watching Isla grow up over the last two years and are looking forward to having a tiny baby in the house again.  They like making plans about who will feed the baby it's first solid food, who will help teach the baby to sit up, crawl and walk.  And they've decided that every morning they each get to hold the baby taking turns from youngest to oldest.  

Isla has no idea what is coming but given her squeals of delight whenever she sees a picture of a baby on the computer or the tv I think she's going to be pretty happy.  She has been told enough times that there's a baby in mommy's belly that she's taken to regularly patting my tummy and telling me, "There's a baby in there."  Then she pats her own and says the same thing. It's quite funny.  I am highly anticipating her breastfeeding dolls and fashioning a carrier out of blankets. 

Due to his crazy work travel, Jed was out of town during the gender ultrasound.  So the kids and I came up with our own fun gender reveal "party" for him!  

 We didn't have time after the ultrasound to pick up our supplies so we had to get candies in both colors.

Once we knew we filled a pinata with the appropriate color.  Jed is a big fan of pinatas.

It was difficult to convince the little two to leave the pinata be until daddy got home.  

I only took video of the kids and Jed whacking the pinata and it doesn't want to load. :( 

This is why the kids thought the pinata was a great idea!  Candy galore! 

And the big reveal... 

It's a GIRL!  

We're so excited! 

I'll leave you with a picture Seth made me for Mother's Day. 

Tea Party

On a recent date, I talked Jed into taking me to Goodwill.  I had told him a couple days earlier that I wanted to find a tea set for Isla so we could finally have tea parties and wouldn't you know it he spotted a cute little ceramic set!  

 We had blueberry bread and coffee.

I enjoyed Isla's many silly faces.  

I can tell we'll be having plenty more parties and I can only imagine how much fun it'll be when there are two little girls! 

What I wasn't expecting was how much the boys would like the tea set.  Considering how much they love food and drinks, I don't know why I was surprised.  This may have been one of the best four dollars I've ever spent!

Life With Boys

When we go out to eat and there's unlimited access to a soda fountain machine, this is bound to happen on the way home.  

We Bought Some Cows

When we moved out here I started researching different animals we could keep on our 13 acres.  Neither Jed or I had much experience with livestock so research seemed like the obvious first step.  

Jed liked the idea of pigs but with pork being my least favorite meat, I wasn't excited.  We contemplated goats but they're described by many as, "escape artists" and the last thing I want to do is try to wrangle a goat back into its pen while Jed is off traveling for work in another state!  That lead to sheep, which we're still open to but we didn't know what we'd do with them!  Cows and horses were out of the question as they were too big and required too much infrastructure.  Then I came across miniature cattle! 

There are several different kinds and many were tempting but it seemed that for our first venture that the mini zebu would be our safest bet.  They're originally from southern Asia so they're better adapted to our climate, they were the least expensive and they were the easiest to find! 

We didn't plan to buy cattle so soon but, we were just perusing craigslist when we found a listing for 3 minis at a steal!  They were less than an hour away to boot!  So we contacted the seller and set up an appointment to check them out.  

Long story, not so short, we agreed to buy them! The seller offered to drop them off a couple days later so Jed set to work on putting up his very first fence!

 Feverishly working.

I watched on from my lofty perch as my boys worked hard!

And just as Jed finished, the zebus were delivered.  That's Rhett, our resident bull.  He's quite friendly, especially when we have food.  

The kids were in awe! 

Isla wakes up almost every morning and asks to go out and see the cows.  

In the back ground are Scarlett and Major, they've been a bit more standoffish with us. However in less than a week we've made a lot of progress with them.  We're thinking that Rhett is the reason they're timid, he tends to become jealous of our attention and rams them out of the way to get to us.  We're considering separating them for a time so they can warm up to us.  

We're not sure if we'll actually use these guys for beef or if Scarlett will ever become comfortable enough to allow us to milk her but that's ok.  For now we're taking in our first experience with larger animal ownership!  We're going to take things one step at a time and see if this fits us or not.