Happy New Year! So far this year has been eventful. I have found out that Herman (my 9 month old steer) can fly! There has been some pretty cold nights here in the North Country that have guilted me into putting Herman in the barn during the deep freeze. I only have one empty stall for him to go into and it is not very big. When I put him in the pen, I fully assumed that he would push the gate down and get loose. Well, in the morning he was loose, but the gate was not disturbed. Nothing was disturbed about the pen walls which was odd because Herman is pretty big and I can't figure out how he managed to get over a tall, tight pen wall to be found standing in the barn aisle the next morning. I chalked it up to levitation. Luckily he didn't knock over any of the feed bins and gorge himself on grain (which would have been very bad). Instead he entertained himself with some hay I had on the milkstand and a tarp I had on the ground. I put him outside in his big pasture and went about my day.
The next morning he was standing in my flowerbed. Tom went out to put him back in his pasture and I went out to figure out how he had escaped. I deduced that he had walked over the snow and ice and stepped over where the fence was low. Tom shoveled some of the snow away from the edge of the fence and I made sure the fence was on and working. Herman stayed in his pasture the rest of the day and we assumed he would continue to stay there.
Yesterday I came home from work to find Herman in the dog pen. I was puzzled but didn't feel like thinking about it too hard. When Tom came home he explained that Herman had seen Tom plowing in his truck and decided he wanted to play. He jumped high in the air over the fence and ran circles around the plow truck, kicking and snorting for joy. Then he ran down the road and skidded on two legs around the corner to the barn. Tom caught Herman in the barn and put him in the dog pen (which is the tallest pen we have). He is there to stay until we can figure out a "flight proof" fencing situation.
