Stampede

We had a bit of excitement this morning. First of all, we were woken up at 7 am by a maize harvester working the field that is ten yards away from the bedroom window. Then, while I was letting the dog out for his morning constitutional at 8, I became aware of a lot of shouting going on at the front of the house. The dog ran there barking, and I followed as quickly as I could. I was met by the sight of our neighbour’s cows galloping back and forth in the garden and José, his partner, trying to round them up without too much success. She was trying to put them in the field next to us, but they had got away from her at the road crossing, and decided to make a dash for freedom.

 

She yelled at me to ring Herman, the farmer, to come and help, so I went inside and rang him, while watching the herd thunder past on the front lawn in the direction of the maize field. He arrived after a couple of minutes, and between us, and with the help of the men harvesting the maize, we managed to get the herd under control and into the field where it should have been.

 

There’s a couple of fence posts damaged, and some of the borders look a bit the worse for wear, but it could have been a lot worse. The lawns are in a bit of a state, but they’ll recover. The stampede has hopefully scared away the moles with a bit of luck. Never a dull moment…