Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Funny Stories and Lessons from the Homestead
228 Plays10 months ago
This is a fun episode where we dive into funny stories and lessons learned from the first year homesteading. Many of these stories stem from simple inexperience, various resource constraints and other circumstances that ultimately have allowed us the opportunity to grow Little Way Farm and Homestead into the educational farm that it is becoming.
Do you have a great homesteading story to share? Send us an email at hello@littlewayhomestead.com. Let us know!
We are also looking for contributors to our website blog. If you are interested in having a homesteading, small-scale farming, or Catholic faith themed post included in the blog - send us submissions directly at hello@littlewayhomestead.com
Interested in the Little Way Farm and Homestead Little Farmer's Immersion Experience? Check out littlewayhomestead.com/events.
Are you a Catholic farming, homesteading or otherwise producing an agricultural good (e.g., beeswax candles, etc.)? Consider listing your business on the Little Way Farm and Homestead website. There is no charge at this time to do so. Visit www.littlewayhomestead.com/directory
For more information about Little Way Farm and Homestead including the farm, podcast, and upcoming events, check out https://littlewayhomestead.com/.
For media inquiries, advertising, speaking requests, guest referrals, consulting and more - email us at hello@littlewayhomestead.com.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Little Way Farm and Homestead Podcast. Little Way Farm and Homestead is a regenerative and educational farm in southeastern Indiana. Motivated by the Catholic faith, we strive to inspire, encourage, and support the development of homesteads and small-scale farms in faith and virtue. I'm Matthew. And I'm Carissa. We're excited for you to join us on the podcast.
00:00:23
Speaker
We are excited to share some stories of some lessons that we have learned on the homestead in the last couple of years.
Upcoming Events and Programs
00:00:31
Speaker
But before we get into those stories, we have a couple announcements upcoming events for this year that we wanted to share with everybody. The first is that we have a summer program this year called the Little Farmers Immersion Experience.
00:00:45
Speaker
It's for ages 4 to 16. It's April, May and June, one Saturday for two hours each month. They'll be able to have hands-on experience and take something home with them every time. Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. We'll talk about soil ecology and planting in April and then we'll talk about chickens and learn about broilers and meat chickens and laying chickens in May and we might need help finding some free-range chickens.
00:01:09
Speaker
eggs around the farm and then in June we're gonna talk about all things cattle. It's gonna be a lot of fun and we already have quite a few signups and we're excited for anyone else who's willing and able to join us out here. So check out the details in the description box and on our website you can find more information about signing up for that event.
Connecting Catholic Homesteaders
00:01:27
Speaker
Yep. And then the other thing is we have just launched a directory on our website to help other Catholics find one another who are involved in home setting or small scale farming or other agricultural pursuits or even trade work. And we are extremely excited for this because we know and we receive so many inquiries from people all across the country and now even outside of the country who are looking to learn from someone else or buy local food or just get into home setting and they're looking for community and they want help.
00:01:54
Speaker
So you can check out our website right now, littlewayhomestead.com backslash directory. And with that, let's get into the episode.
Calves in the Garden: A Funny Story
00:02:12
Speaker
All right, Chrissa.
00:02:13
Speaker
Do you remember when we woke up one morning, we looked out the window and there was a small group of cattle in our side yard where they are not supposed to be? Yes, it was all three of the calves from that year. Yeah. And they had just trampled through our garlic field. One might have still been in the garlic field whenever we happened to look up.
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah, so this one is kind of funny. So basically we woke up, look out the window, and there are three giant black bull calves and a heifer standing in the side yard. And if you ever visit Little Wave Harmon Homestead, or you can see maybe some pictures of it, our side yard is basically where it's a family-oriented area. We have a small family garden out there. It's where we originally started growing garlic before we expanded into the commercial gardens.
00:03:07
Speaker
And there was a small area between that space and where the actual farm begins. And I think I had just so happened to have cut a small section into the barbed wire fence at the time because I was a little bit tired of walking around the fence. I probably figured I'd put a gate or something in later. But I remember distinctly looking out the window first thing in the morning and all of those cows being just sitting right there in the side yard.
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah. Well, we had fenced them off from that area because they, this was an area that they really enjoyed coming down to, but we cut them off from it because it became our big garden area. And so we didn't want cows going through grazing around the gardens because obviously that can cause some issues. So they weren't, they weren't supposed to have access to even get to the area where there was an open gate.
00:04:01
Speaker
right they should have been cut off from that area alone and that obviously did not work and i remember running down the stairs thinking well i don't remember what i was thinking i just know it was either these cows turn around and go back through the hole in the fence that i made which seems very unlikely for that to have happened at this point
00:04:21
Speaker
or they're going to walk out into the street. And I think part of the reason that they were so interested in being in that part of the yard is because of the neighbors cows across the road who they were probably curious about. Yes, they I definitely think so. But I'm also pretty sure that we actually they woke us up. I think that they must have started calling. I think you're probably right. And we woke up and our bedroom window happens to overlook that garden. So we both
00:04:47
Speaker
pop our heads out the window and see cows right outside our window. And I think we had also just bought the herd. So we, we've never like had experience of moving cattle. So we both just jumped up and threw clothes on and like ran out the door the first thing in the morning.
Electric Fencing Mishaps
00:05:07
Speaker
Yeah. Really thankful that they did end up turning around and going back the right way into the farm area because that could have been an absolute disaster. And when we talk about, so these were calves at the time, but when we talk about calves, these calves were nearing butcher time. I mean, they were probably like five, six, seven, eight. Yeah. They were very big. They're very, very big, very heavy. Yes. So a little bit more than just a, Oh, a calf got out again. No.
00:05:32
Speaker
Yeah, they weren't they weren't little cute calves. They were like starting. I mean the boys They were starting to get a little they're getting a little wild. Yeah. Yeah, they looked a little tough So that was one that was a that was a good first story. How about this one? Do you remember the time? I actually think you probably weren't very happy with me at this time for some reason but I had you working or we were working together and I had you holding on to an electric wire reel so a reel with electric wire on it and
00:06:00
Speaker
We're moving fencing for our dairy cow. Got it. Yeah. So we're removing the fencing, moving the wire. And obviously when you do that and it's electric fencing, you need to make sure that the fencing is turned off so that people don't get electrocuted. Yes. And that happened. I turned it off and then something else happened in my mind. Well, part of the problem is that.
00:06:24
Speaker
I was having some health issues earlier in the year, and so I hadn't been out helping you a lot with chores on the farm. And I think it was this time that I had started to have a lot more energy and try to get outside and help you more with chores. So you were like, hey, come help me move fencing. It'll go so much quicker with a second hand.
00:06:45
Speaker
And so you're used to doing this all on your own, but I'm out there with you. And so in your head, you're like, I'm done. I've moved the fence. Now I turn it on. And he had no idea what I was doing, which was making sure that the
00:07:01
Speaker
The fence was secured that the line I had was secured to the post that we were putting it on. So I'm still holding the electric wire in my hand when Matthew decides, well, I'm done. It's time to turn the wire on. And I start feeling shocks.
00:07:20
Speaker
But I thought it was, I can't remember where I felt it first. I don't feel like it was in my hand. I thought a bug was stinging me or biting me. And I started like looking around for something that was biting me or stinging me. And at the same time, Matthew had looked over and realized I'm holding the wire. So I'm holding on, not even like letting go of my grip.
00:07:46
Speaker
and it keeps, like, the shock keeps going through and every time I'm like, what is binding me?
00:07:53
Speaker
And finally, he's like, let go of the wire. And once I realized, once it settled into my brain, what had happened, I think I was not very happy with you. I don't think you were very happy with me about that one. And I'm sure I felt badly about it. And for anyone who's wondering, this type of electric electricity isn't going to really injure you, but it definitely does not feel comfortable. I mean, it could injure you. That's that's not that's unreasonable. I wouldn't, but it definitely doesn't feel good.
Gate Accidents on the Farm
00:08:21
Speaker
with each it like goes out in a wave like there's a pause in between yeah and with each one it was getting stronger because you had just turned it on I was at the very end of the line so I'm sure it's like pumping more electric every time yeah it wasn't it wasn't necessarily
00:08:39
Speaker
painful at least yet for me it might have gotten more painful it was just shocking like you know electric shock and I didn't know what was going on and so it it reminds me this is easy segue to another one
00:08:56
Speaker
I maybe I don't have the best record of working always with you in mind when you are working with me because there was another time and that's not even fully accurate either because we work together on the farm a lot together. But I obviously do a lot of the day to day work.
00:09:13
Speaker
I think we've gotten better at working together. I think there is a lot that you do on your own. And so it makes sense that whenever I come in to help, I don't know your usual patterns or how you do things. Well, but there was another time, and it just makes me think of this, where we are working on building a small corral inside the barn for, I think, chickens at the time, some meat birds.
00:09:37
Speaker
And we were moving, I don't remember exactly why we were doing this or exactly what the plan was at that time. It was probably some haphazard plan put together last minute. This is how Matthew works. We're getting better at it. He looks for, okay, I have this, this can do what I need it to do. And oh, I have this, that'll do the other part of what I need to do.
00:09:59
Speaker
Sometimes you got to piece things together. This was not a good piecing together though. I remember taking some Like cattle gates which are big heavy gates and they come in varying sizes and varying weight heavy they can be very heavy made of metal and Yeah, I definitely Moved one over and turned around and Chris. Oh, no, I brought another one over. Okay. Yeah, here's what happened there we have a
00:10:26
Speaker
Pole burn so there are some posts in it which you could easily like frame out different sections and We realized that though the length worked to use one of our cattle gates to section off a piece that we were gonna Put was it chickens or cows? I don't remember if it was chickens because that wouldn't have made sense I want to think and we might have needed to move a cow in there for some reason but I could be wrong I
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, I can't remember exactly what it was, but we were trying to make- Doesn't seem very wise to put those gates around chickens. I know, that's what I was thinking. I was like, that wouldn't really hold them in, so maybe it wasn't chickens. But anyway, so we realized that the gates were fitting between the poles that we had.
00:11:12
Speaker
I think it was probably going to be for the cow for some reason. I don't remember why. But so he took one gate over and we also our barn has been used for storage. When we moved into the house, we stored a lot of our old house in the barn while we were transitioning everything into the new house and like figuring out what we needed to keep and what to get rid of. So
00:11:39
Speaker
There are still some boxes sitting around and there was a box sitting near where he was moving the gate that had glass spice jars in it and he took the gate and just like whipped it around and knocked the box completely over and glass spice jars just shattered all over the floor. So I'm already like, you just shattered all my spice jars.
00:12:03
Speaker
So I go over to start picking them up because I think I we also had one of our are like One-year-old with us in the barn and I didn't want her like getting into the glass and cutting herself So I go over I'm trying to clean up the glass. He's still focused on the project at hand and so he goes to grab another cattle gate and
00:12:27
Speaker
I don't know what happened to the trip. I definitely bumped something. I definitely bumped something. Lost hold of the gate. Next thing I know, I have a big crash on the back of my head. Yeah, totally knocked. Took one gate, knocked the other gate, and it fell over on Chris's head.
00:12:46
Speaker
right on my head. I thought it was going to be a pretty bad injury. I'm surprised that it wasn't. I acted swiftly. I attended to you very quickly. I knew that that one did not feel good. It hurt and I think I was also a little angry that time. A little more than the electric fence, honestly. I remember you being pretty upset with me.
00:13:11
Speaker
But it's okay. We made up.
Dealing with Predators: Challenges and Policies
00:13:13
Speaker
Okay. Here's the next story. Here's a funny one. These also might be good stories of like why people say like farming can be dangerous. Like you should probably just think things through, see who's around you when you're trying to like move things around. Yeah. And especially because it's not just physically exhausting at times, but it's mentally exhausting. So it's just easy to forget things or just not be aware. And there's just always a never ending to do list. So.
00:13:38
Speaker
we don't always have the time we would love to have to sit down and plan out every project neatly and have everything set up to like put it together sometimes we only have a short window and we're like our deadline like this animal needs this now so we have to find some kind of structure to fit this and it's just it adds up it's all scattered yeah yeah but we'll get better and we are getting better okay well here's a story again of not getting better
00:14:08
Speaker
Here's another funny one that people might think is interesting. One time, and this is actually why we have a zero predator policy now on the farm. That's where this comes from. Well, this is half of it. Right. Yeah, we do have a zero predator policy now. OK, so this one was kind of funny. So we noticed that some of our laying hens were suddenly not around anymore. And when that happens and you have free ranging chickens, often that means that they're being taken by a predator. Well, we were finding them.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah, and you'll find different parts of the hen left over. You'll find evidence of what type of predator it was that probably took them or attacked them. If you find them, then sometimes you can figure out what it is that's attacking because of how they leave them. Right.
00:14:52
Speaker
And so in this instance, what I ended up finding at maybe late at night or at dusk is I started doing what we call like a flashlight check outside where you just scan the property really quickly with a high powered flashlight. And what you're looking for is the reflection of eyes. And by those eyes, you can eventually learn to tell what type of animal it is, even from a far distance away. And so that's really helpful. So you can tell, you know, is this a raccoon? Is that a fox? Is it a cat? You know, what kind of animal is it likely?
00:15:21
Speaker
Well, I ended up finding two pairs of eyes near one part of our property and determined those are definitely raccoons. And then on further inspection, they absolutely were raccoons. And so my neighbor lent me some traps so I could trap the raccoons and ended up trapping one of them. Well, uh, when I did get it, it was breathing really heavily and it didn't look really well. And so I thought it was sick.
00:15:46
Speaker
Well, not to mention raccoons are really cute. Like I didn't expect it, but seeing them up close, I don't know if it was a young raccoon or what, but like they were cute. And so it was hard to be like, Oh, they're not, they're not doing any harm. Right. Right. Well, so I ended up going to, I had contacted this, the, I don't remember the local health department or state around it.
00:16:14
Speaker
And they informed me, they gave me proper advice on how to handle the animal. And so what I intended to do was work to dispatch it at the back of our property.
00:16:23
Speaker
Dispatch. Dispatch it. Yep. And so I took it back there and opened up the crate and suddenly this animal, which I thought was weak, became very vibrantly alive, sprung out of this crate, ran away, and I never saw it again. You were intending to kill it? Yeah. I thought you were just trying to release it. No, definitely not. I was trying to dispatch it. I think that was the direction that I received at the time.
00:16:48
Speaker
Well, I think part of it was going to the back of the property. We were just to an isolated area away from everybody. Yes. We were trying to get to a place where at least risk for anything else getting shot. Right. And so trying to be really responsible about it and handle it appropriately and accordingly. And suddenly this creature springs to life. This raccoon becomes absolutely full of life and it jumps out of the crate, runs off into the woods, never to be seen again.
00:17:18
Speaker
Until? Until the next day when I trapped it again in the same area. The same raccoon. That raccoon did not make it that time.
00:17:29
Speaker
That was a funny one. And that's partly why we have a zero predator policy because we realize that when you have farm animals around that are prey to animals, that those animals, those predators will travel to find them and they're not just aimlessly moving about. They have a motivation and they're looking for food likely.
00:17:50
Speaker
At that point, we had lost enough of our laying hens that we were tired of whatever was taking them because that obviously takes away from our food, our family. It's not fun to tell customers that you don't have any eggs this week because your chickens got killed. It just isn't a good look.
00:18:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's one part of the zero predator policy. The other one is that one time we built a chicken tractor, which is typically a movable or a mobile coop that you would keep chickens in, like meat birds, except that I tried to increase the size of it without accounting for the weight because I was using wood for that chicken tractor.
00:18:32
Speaker
And so it became very difficult, if not nearly impossible, to move it on a regular basis with just one person. Yeah, it was pretty heavy.
00:18:40
Speaker
So we ended up letting those meat chickens just free range. We didn't even put them in a net, which is typically how we do it now where we'll give them either a controlled area inside electric netting and then we'll move that or we'll give them a tractor that's enclosed somewhere between those options or one of those options. And so we didn't even do that. We just went full free range with the meat chickens.
00:19:03
Speaker
And that seemed like a really good idea at the time. To be fair, meat, meat chickens are very different. They grow very fast. So they just, they don't like roam the way that laying hens do. Yeah. They're not going to travel far away from food. It wasn't quite like they stayed pretty much in their area. It was in a fenced in, but not fenced for chickens in pasture.
00:19:26
Speaker
and this seemed like a fine idea and frankly day by day by day that seemed like a fine idea and it was working pretty okay and then well we had hundreds of chickens so this was hundreds of chickens and as we're taking care of them and going out and seeing them every day we start I know I started to say do you think this is how many chickens we're supposed to have and
00:19:53
Speaker
I mean, it's kind of impossible to count them. There's hundreds. I think we started that one was like a, I think it was like 150 or so for that specific batch. Yeah. But then you start counting them and you're like, this obviously is not 150. And then it's a little less the next day and a little next the next day and a little next, less the next day. And then one day you look up and one of them is being dragged off into the woods by a baby fox.
00:20:18
Speaker
We're just sitting outside talking about the weekend or something and Matthew looks up and is like, what's got the chicken?
00:20:27
Speaker
Yeah, that wasn't good. That means that that Fox was either very hungry or was eating so well and became so comfortable that it had no problem coming up there. And I suspect that that is what it was because it was a morning, bright daylight, healthy looking. Yeah, absolutely. Was just picking off chickens.
00:20:50
Speaker
It might have just been playing. I think it was a baby, which is what it is. We've learned now that one, you really need to make sure that you protect your investment when it comes to farm animals.
00:21:06
Speaker
Also, if you're homesteading and not trying to produce for food, you know, for others, it's really important that not only do you steward well, but that you really make sure that your animals are protected from predators. Otherwise you end up having to work more to pay for those animals and replace them. And it just becomes really discouraging, especially with hens and other animals that take a longer time to produce what it is that you want. Like if you want eggs from a hen,
00:21:34
Speaker
For some breeds, it can take four or five months. And if you get a big predator attack in July or June, that means you might not get any more eggs until next spring because sometimes they won't produce through the winter time. So that can be really frustrating.
00:21:50
Speaker
But anyway, that's why we have a zero predator policy, which means that all predators are protected against and dispatched as soon as we see them in a reasonable manner, meaning that they are they are affecting the farm or the homestead or threatening the safety of the animals.
Chaos with Cattle: A Butchering Story
00:22:05
Speaker
That's what we mean by that. Yeah. OK, so I think this story that we need to end with is the first time we try to catch our cows. Yeah, I agree. And that's a bit of a story, I would say. Yeah, I'd say so.
00:22:18
Speaker
So maybe I'll start it and then you can just kind of chime in. Yeah. So I remember, so basically we needed to catch some of the bull calves and the heifer. And there really wasn't a bull calf. And we just kind of referred to them over time because you just get used to which ones are the mom cows and which ones are the calves. But these were grown at this point. They were yearlings. Yeah. And they were ready to go to butcher.
00:22:41
Speaker
And so we, this was the first time that we were doing it and we were not in a really controlled rotational grazing strategy at that time, nor did we have a very good relationship with those animals. And it was so difficult that it was at the point where if I was to go out in the field, they would basically just run away and hide.
00:22:59
Speaker
Well, if we go back a little bit, the relationship had probably been a little bit strained because when we started trying to catch them, we kind of thought that we could just do it by like walking up and pushing them in a certain direction, just like fire physical presence. And we learned really quickly that they had no interest in us being physically near them. And so
00:23:28
Speaker
We tried this a couple different ways, a couple different times over three months maybe. And I think that it just developed more of a strain in the relationship. So by the time you're really trying to catch them, we've got our neighbor
00:23:45
Speaker
like giving us a little bit more direction saying he's gonna come out and help us. They were pretty unhappy to be around you. Yeah, they were a little riled up. Sometimes you can spook cattle and that's one of the most difficult situations that you can run into where it nearly triggers kind of a primal instinct within them to fight or flight.
00:24:06
Speaker
And somewhere along the course of those few months through a few other things that we were trying to do as far as getting them in particular parts of the farm, they definitely had gotten spooked. And then we had to address that. And it just takes a long, long time to re repair that relationship. And before we go on in the story, spoiler alert for if you do visit us this year, you will notice, hey, those cows will come right up to us if you call them. So yeah, we've learned a little bit. We've learned a little bit since this incident.
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah, they are wonderful now. But so back to the story. Effectively, the day or the day before we were ready to catch them, what we had done is we had a trailer that was backed up to him. I think it was a 16 foot or 30 foot long trailer that was backed up to this corral. And a corral is just a place where you catch the cattle.
00:24:54
Speaker
Often you can do it really wisely and you can design a system of shoots that effectively guide the cattle in particular directions based on their physical makeup. That's what we'll do this year as a way of improving this, but we were early on, we were trying it out. We didn't have the best setup, but effectively.
00:25:10
Speaker
We also we were kind of thrown into like we weren't super prepared because we didn't realize that We were gonna be sending them to butcher and then we realized that we were and then we were getting dates and the dates for the butcher just they're available and they're available and
00:25:29
Speaker
So when you got a date, we had to throw something together. So it wasn't like we had all this time to plan out a nice corral. We didn't have, like we used what we had on the farm and what our neighbor lent us. Yeah, that's totally fine. We, I think if I remember right, the butcher basically called me and said, Hey, an opening happened. I need you to bring them in. And so it was like, okay, well we're unprepared, but I guess we'll have to get them in.
00:25:53
Speaker
So we have this trailer backed up to effectively a large square and the square is made up of various cattle panels and wooden structures to keep them in there. We had a little alleyway that we would let them walk down to get in there to drink water. And so they got used to it for a few days. And then what happened was we effectively tried to trap them.
00:26:13
Speaker
into and run into the trailer and the first time that we did it all the mom cows were in there with the three that we wanted to catch in order to put in the trailer and they were it was not good they effectively broke the corral one of the moms I distinctly remember seeing her rear up on her hind legs
00:26:32
Speaker
take her front two legs and smash them down on this wall that was probably about six ish feet tall that is pretty tall maybe five to six feet tall and just crushed the whole wall and it wasn't it was not wood and cattle panel it was a metal gate
00:26:48
Speaker
Oh, that's right. That one was a metal gate and she crushed it like a pipe. Yes. Yeah. It's still back there. The evidence is there. And then when that happened, all the cattle got out. So that wasn't good, but wild enough. I thought that they were spooked at that point and we had to catch them to next day to get to the butcher or we were, you know, it was back to, well, whenever, whenever he's got an opening. And so you kind of just, you got a lot of pressure on you.
00:27:14
Speaker
And wild enough, they ended up all coming back in there, except this time, we were watching them from a van that we were driving up and down the road to kind of wait for them to go in there and get some water. And we drove by, Carissa was driving, and I was in the passenger seat. And what we did is we had a long rope attached to a gate that led to the alleyway.
00:27:36
Speaker
and we watched all three of the cows walk in that we wanted to catch, and then one mom went in with them, and then that mom turned around and left. So this time, instead of having the whole herd inside the crow, we only had the ones that we wanted to catch. So I'm thinking, oh yeah, this is perfect. And so I jump out of this van, grab the rope, pull it shut, and at this point, they are locked in there. We are good to go. And then it got wild from there.
00:28:04
Speaker
I jumped ran over to the alley, jumped over it, pulled another pipe gate close that we had fastened to one of like the basically to the crowd to cut the alley off. So now they are stuck in the corral area, which is probably like 15 feet by 15 feet, something like that. It's not huge, but it's not big either. I jump into the corral with these with this cat, this group of cattle.
00:28:31
Speaker
And when cattle get spooked like this, they start running in circles. And what they're doing is they're trying to feel in out and they're testing all the sides and they're trying to break out of this area and get away from you. Well, when you jumped in, they you had put hay into the trailer to lure the cows in there.
00:28:48
Speaker
and the Cavs had gone into the trailer. So you jumped in, they were in the trailer, but they heard the commotion of you jumping over the fence and pulling the gate shut. And there might have been, the mom that left might have started calling out to them. I'm sure she did. So they were in there, you had it, but then by the time you got over to the trailer, they were already taking off out of the trailer right at you.
00:29:14
Speaker
And so I jumped into that corral and those that group of cattle started running in a circle inside of this crowd with me in it. So we are talking. This is dangerous. This is not good. This is really bad. And I also later was like, I should have put up a camera at some point before we did this because it would have been a wild video. Absolutely. I mean, I was watching from the van and I couldn't tell if I should be laughing or praying. And I think I was actually doing both.
00:29:42
Speaker
And I after it was all done, I was like, I wish I would have recorded that because it happened so fast. It was almost hard to process exactly what happened. Right. So how it ended. Well, those that group of cattle running in a circle, what they're doing is they're kind of feeling for an opening to run through.
00:30:00
Speaker
and they made their way around a circle and I was in there and I was just able to stay out of their way. They ran back into the trailer. I ran to the trailer where the doors were. I pulled the first door shut and dropped the bolt to lock that door. The second door was tied up with bail twine to a wooden post so that it didn't get shut accidentally while they were in there before.
00:30:20
Speaker
And what you're supposed to do at that point is have a razor knife out or some other sharp object to cut that twine because that is the type of twine that holds together the bales, the five by six bales, four by four, whatever size they are, which means it is very tough. And so I grabbed, I didn't have a knife on me and I didn't have time because I saw them hit the end of that trailer and I saw them continue this circle that they were running. They turned around and they were running straight at me.
00:30:50
Speaker
And so in that moment, I grabbed that gate and I threw it as hard as I could with all the adrenaline rushing in my body right back into the trailer. The twine snapped. I saw the cattle stammer down and stopped. I was able to grab the gate, drop the pin, and then they were in there.
00:31:08
Speaker
And then I realized in that moment, it's one thing to see cattle from behind a fence. It is another thing to see the power and the strength of these creatures that God has created. And that is how we caught cattle for the first time. And it is not how we're doing it the next time. We definitely walked away saying there's got to be a better way. There's definitely a better way.
00:31:34
Speaker
And with that, I think that's a great place to end tonight. And really want to say thank you to everyone for joining us for another episode of the Little Way Farm and Homestead Podcast. Please be sure to check
Promoting the Homestead Directory
00:31:43
Speaker
out our website. If you are a farmer, homesteader, someone else who does any type of value added production and you're a Catholic and want to represent your business on our website, check it out littlewayhomestead.com backslash directory.
00:31:55
Speaker
Send in a submission form and we'll get those uploaded We are getting an enormous amount of hits already on our website for the for those who are in the directory and it's extremely exciting because we're able to point back and show people that it's driving a lot of traffic back to you all's businesses and websites and hopefully that's helpful and With that, thanks again. Have a great day
00:32:18
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on another episode of the Little Way Farm and Homestead Podcast. Check out the show notes for more information about this episode and be sure to tune in next week.