Herding cows and launching rodents

Thursday evening, DH and I went out to the new house to do some work before the contractor arrived on Friday. Things did not go as planned. It turns out that the person we thought owned the cows does not. But we got the name of the correct owner and DH planned to call him the next day.

Best laid plans. We had left the gate open and the cows sneaked over to it and escaped. They saw the open gate and ran like bats out of Hades down our 1000 foot driveway and out into the road. The cattle guard at the end of our driveway did not phase them. DH called the owner, introduced himself, and then said that though there was a fence down between our properties, his cows had escaped out our gate. The owner, who lives in Houston, told DH what to do. I wonder if every landowner around our place who keeps cows live in Houston?!

We found a five-gallon bucket, hopped in our truck and drove out to the road to find the cows. They were about half a mile down. DH got out, threw some gravel in the bucket and shook it at the cows. Stupid things thought he had food, so they followed him home. I followed DH and the 11 cows back to our land in the truck and then SHUT THE GATE BEHIND THEM. DH called the owner who was very relieved that we had rescued his cows. He will be out this weekend to fix the fence. We did not get anything done on the house.

As we were leaving that night, I pulled open a drawer in the kitchen and let out a yell. There was a mouse in the drawer (filthy peeing and pooping rodent!). DH was wearing his leather work gloves so he snatched open the drawer, grabbed the mouse by the tail, opened the kitchen screen door, and hurled the mouse into the air and about 100 feet away. We will have to seal all the mouse holes in the kitchen before I put ANYTHING in the cabinets. And I'll have to re-clean what I already cleaned. Ack!

More of our home-moaner tale tomorrow. I didn't stitch a lick today. Phooey.