By: Wayne Head
At the end of February, I have lived on my land for 25 years. Over these years, I had many different visitors, co-workers, relatives from out of state, and many animals. Now, I live on an acre and a half of land in a small community of 60, one-acre home sites, most of which are mobile homes. Directly to the north of the land that my wife and I live on is an open field that ends at a dirt road that has another open field and so on, for miles. To the south of our land is a mobile home and to the west of us is another home. We have very few close neighbors. We are not isolated, but we do have plenty of elbowroom.
The first time I had animals come into my yard was the first year that I moved onto the land. At the time I was renting what I would be able to buy six years later. Early one morning while it was still semi dark, I looked out of my north-facing window and saw six large, strange looking dogs facing my three Australian Shepherd dogs through the fencing of their pen. As the early morning light came onto the land, I realized that the six strange dogs were instead six large hogs. I called my neighbor and he retrieved his errant pigs. About a year later, one evening I came home late to have my truck’s headlights dimly show a two foot long, one foot wide undulating animal moving beside my dog’s pen. I got my flashlight and gingerly walked out to the strange beast to find that it was 25, week old ducklings who were foolishly trying to get into my excited dogs’ pen. I got a dog crate and gathered up all of the yellow-coated fowl. I again called my neighbor who told me that they belonged to another neighbor down the road, and he came to get them with a specially designed crate. The next incident of an uninvited animal guest was one Saturday morning about 18 years ago when the southern neighbors’ gelding got out of his fenced yard and raced past me to the open field beyond my land. It was almost a hit and run with a concerned family of father, mother, and three young boys yelling and running after the loose horse.
Another time, a neighbor’s emu ran through my yard. I kept a respectful distance while trying to herd the bird back into the neighbor’s yard. About 13 years ago, I had a drum that means that I drummed on a Pow Wow style drum with seven friends. During one of our practices in my yard, with the drum suspended on a frame, I heard a loud peeping sound that seemed familiar but not usual for our normal singing. At the end of the song, a small duckling came out from under the drum, where it had passed the feet of the man directly across from me, to face me. She had a home with me for several years.
One of the most memorable visits was the time the bulls owned by our neighbor to the southwest of us came to visit. Now, two days earlier I had just stepped past my car and the carport towards the road when I saw a cow walking towards me on the road. The cow saw me, paused, and pawed the ground with one forefoot. That was when I realized that this was no ordinary cow, this was a bull and he was not particularly happy with me at the time. I slowly backed up into my yard and the bull went on down the road. Ramon worked for a diary and had taken in six small calves and hand raised them to adulthood. Well, all six were bulls who would come when Ramon called and followed him anywhere he went. Ramon did not neuter his calves so he raised six bulls who would occasionally fight each other and break out of their pen. They would wander the neighborhood at will. One day, my wife and I were feeding our dogs and ducks when I heard her call out to me. I went over to the duck pen that bordered our western property line and saw six bulls pressing up against the fence line just five feet from my wife who was feeding ducks. I quietly told her to slowly stand up, come out of the pen and walk facing the bulls towards the rest of our yard. I told her that the fence that was between her and the bulls would not last longer than a shoulder shrug from any of the bulls. She slowly came into the yard and we heard Ramon calling out “my babies, come on my babies.” The six bulls turned and began walking towards Ramon in a docile line. He slowly led the bulls back to his yard and their pen.
The last episode of someone else’s animals in my yard came this summer. I had told my friend Alphonso Sandoval that the grass in the north end of my yard was hip high. He had four horses, and that quarter of an acre was fenced, so he brought the horses over and left them until I had many road apples and no grass in my yard. The last night three of the horses pushed out of my fencing and went out into the night. Fortunately, I had gone out to water the horses and heard one frantically neighing and running east and west in the yard. I called Alphonso then met him at the north end of my yard. We discovered the breach, and I stood holding the sixteen-foot long cattle panel trying to keep the lone horse in the yard while Alphonso tried to locate the horses with his flashlight. I patched together some wire to hold the fencing and then began manning the gate. Eventually, the three horses came pounding up to me out of the night. I walked the gate towards the lone horse while slapping it on its chest to turn it, and the three ran past him into the yard. I did some more patching on the fencing, and Alphonso moved his horses home the next day. Just another day on what my wife calls Head Acres.
