Blue Skies

The storm clouds I alluded to disappeared today and the skies are blue. I guess a little explanation is in order.<br />n<br />nWe finished the second cutting of hay Sunday which was a good thing. 1500 ton of hay in one year is enough. On Monday I discovered the replacement heifer's water was getting a little low and they needed moved. Not a problem I had some riding to do anyway so I just added moving the heifers to the list.<br />n<br />nSo we do our riding and gather the heifers on Tuesday and we had a little problem, 56 head were missing. Yes, almost half of the heifers were missing. Now it is not unusual to not get a few in a gather but to miss about 50 head, a semi load, worried me a little bit. When we got home I called the neighbors to see if they had seen them. They hadn't and assured me that they didn't have them. So I went back over on the 4 wheeler and thoroughly checked the pasture out to see if we missed them. I found 6 head but the other 50 head were not in my possession. I flat knew it. When I got home I called the neighbors again and they said they had looked around and they did not have my heifers.<br />n<br />nSo the storm clouds loomed up. All I could imagine with such an even number missing was that somebody had stolen them. I fretted and stewed and stayed awake all night long trying to figure out how to find my missing heifers. Oh was I a wreck this morning.<br />n<br />nWell, I went out this morning and started really closely checking all the fences to see if I could see where somebody stole my heifers and drove them out of the pasture. In perusal of the fence I spotted some cattle in the neighbors place that didn't seem right. He had all pairs and some of the critters I was seeing weren't pairs so I was suspicious. I drove over to look at them and viola, in 15 head, 11 of them were my heifers. If 11 were here they had to all be here so the clouds were breaking up.<br />n<br />nBy the time it was getting to hot to work cows we had all but 3 head out of the neighbors place. I am sure they are there and we will be going to get them tomorrow. I was so worried for nothing. My quote for doubt this morning was so accurate but I shouldn't have been, everything turned out all right.<br />n<br />n<b>The time-honored bread-sauce of the happy ending. Henry James</b>