A vehicle that provides me with work, or the ability to escape from it, deserves a name.
Today, my SUV discovered what it is to be a farm girl.
I need to take an evening to read my tome of an owner's manual. How does one override the sensors? Binky is equipped with corner radars that squawk when dangerously close objects are detected. Narrow trails send her whistling into epileptic seizures.
Believe me, we're safest on the trails. She found out a 5 mile excursion to our equine vet's house can be an adventure.
What do you do when you drive past a 16ft section of busted down fencing that's supposed to hold back 100 head of cattle?
1. We go looking for the escapees. Found one 300 yards up the road.
2. Contact farmer. Was not home, but gave me code to open main driveway gates.
3. Round up said fugitive. Which was not a cow or a steer, but a rather surly bull.
I left my red SUV blocking the county road at one end, then I made my way to a point beyond the bull and started pushing him towards my car by shaking a plastic grocery bag.
No good pictures of the cattle drive because my subject was unruly and unpredictable, pretending to be going in the proper direction only to turn about and come back towards me.
If Binky hadn't been so terrified, I'm sure she'd activated her horn, head lights, whistles! Trial by fire on the first day.
Not yet equipped with an emergency tool box, we had to resort to using old dog leashes to piece the fence back together:
