cow adventures!

So I was asked to feed the cows some rounds of hay yesterday. So I got on the tractor with one of the other interns and with his help managed to easily and successfully stab the first round. We made our way back around the barn to the cow's feeder and the other intern (S) jumped off to open the gate and but the twine once I had dropped the round. So I go in, drop the round and S comes back to me because there's something wrong with the knife. I managed to fix it just as one of the cows starts walking in. S asked me if it was the bull and I told him no, but I see another cow coming and I wait a moment to confirm it, and it's the bull. I tell S and he gets a little nervous now and comes back to the tractor, but sums up the courage to go back to the round. Now J (the farmer) wouldn't have asked us to do this if he didn't think it was safe. Jethro, the bull, was a fairly good guy but you should always keep an eye on the bull. So, the cows (and bull) have come into the courtyard area to start eating the bale (even though they have about 25 acres of fresh pasture to eat) and S is cutting away. I figure the situation is under control and that he's nearly done so I back up the tractor. Jethro then gets a little feisty and starts pushing some of the other cows aside and comes around to where the tractor was just occupying and where S had just fled from. So we decide to leave since he wasn't very inclined to get back amongst the large beef cattle. We discuss that maybe we should get J because we're too chicken to go back in with the bull and we can't let them eat the twine.

I silently decided against it because J was out cutting more hay and I didn't want to distract him from his job. So I parked the tractor, took the knife from S and walked towards the small pasture where I can hop over another fence that is much closer to the feed bin. So I sat on the fence while all the cows stared at me. Jethro was still too close and no amount of telling him to go away or stop looking at me worked. S has the idea that maybe Lily will chase them away. So we let her out and she sorta helped to shoo them away (not to mention it was kind of amusing to see a spunky little dog take on these hundreds of pounds of cows). After about 5-10 minutes I finally sum up the courage to hop in there and walk up to the round (Jethro stayed on the other side) all the while I talked and told them to keep their distance and that we were merely trying to save their lives.

After a long minute of cutting and pulling on twine we saved the herd of cows from an agonizing death!