Monday, March 26, 2018

I can finally talk about this part 5: What are you doing with that bale of hay?


A couple of days after Dales son got her cows off of my property she took this photo and sent it into animal control with a witness statement as part of a complaint.  It shows a cow outside her fence and gate, eating some hay from a bale that is on a red handtruck.   as per usual I didn't find out about this complaint until weeks after the fact. 

The picture was taken after dark, in a wind and hailstorm.   You farmers out there:  Do you wait until after dark in the hail to do your chores?  She's retired.  No job.  Was home all day as near as I can tell.

Dale claims that she was out feeding her cows and this cow happened to be there at the same time, and that the bale of hay that the cow is eating she was going to feed to her cows.
this is a diagram of the area - the blue "cow here" is where the cow is pictured.  the red line is the shortest distance between her hay storage and where the cows are fed.  The orange line is where she claims to have been feeding the cows. 
I don't know of any farmer who waits until the hail and wind to feed their animals after dark.  I also don't know of any farmer who would choose to go through two locked gates (red and green in the diagram) every day to feed the cows.  I do know that you can lead a cow around with a bale of hay, particularly if that hay is something that cows really like, like alfalfa.

On the morning of January 22nd I woke up to find her cows in my grapes again.   Here's a summary of the video:
  I watch as dale brings down the same handtruck as in the 19th photo, opens my fence, herds her two cows out, and down the driveway, and closes up my fence.  You want to know how I think that cow got in front of her gate?  Dale just demonstrated it for me, on video.   I ask her here what she wants out of all of this.  She can't answer.  I don't think she knows. 

She notes that there's alfalfa from the area of my fence she opens to her gate.  I'm sure there is.  I couldn't tell you when it was put there, but in my opinion it was put there by her on the evening of the 19th when she was luring my cow through the fence she opened.

Shelton cows out 2nd time, opens fence and herds them through from bruce king on Vimeo.

Next:  The trial

1 comment:

grasspunk said...

She's getting free servicing for her cows too? She could have just asked for that.

What a mean way to run your life. I'm wondering if her identity was tied up in your farm and now she's lost it she is going to resent whoever takes it over. To add insult to injury you are improving the farm and running it well with high quality work and multiple businesses, highlighting her own farming incompetence.

But she's trying to get you jailed for this so zero sympathy from me. Pull out all the stops.