The other night we got a bit behind schedule, since we had a lot on our plates. As a result, we were about 45 minutes late to milk the goats and the cow.
I was dutifully carrying the milking machine up the hill so I could milk the cow, while Nathan milked the goats.
I walked through the open gate in the “Causeway” – a narrow area about 15 feet wide, running the length of ground between the barn and the cow’s paddocks toward the bottom of the hill – say, 100 – 120 feet in length. We had this fenced off as a fail-safe – in case any of the goats or the cow got out when we were going into the paddock.
Anyway, I walked through the gate that was open and there, standing in the barn by her stanchion, was the cow – looking at us as if we missed the train or something.
Funny, how animals have a sense of time, routine and respond in an unusual (to us) fashion when their predictable world of routine is upset.
Fern, the cow, had knocked the gate to her paddock off of the hinges and had walked up into the barn to get milked – We were a bit stunned by this, but in retrospect, it makes perfect sense.
She needed to be milked and she knew where to go to get milked. The only think missing was a bit of grain in her dish by the stanchion and the humans to milk her…
–Pat