The Great Escape Of 2016

It was a peaceful day. Some of the pigeons were sunning themselves on the gravel road:

Blue and Remy lounged on the hay in the cool shade of the barn:

The Red Poll girls quietly chewed their cuds:

I unwrapped the last bale of hay for the season. But when I opened the gate to drive the hay bale into the pasture, Blue and Remy bolted out, racing merrily around the green lawn:

The lawn had fresh, green grass, longer and tastier than anything in their pasture because no one had been eating it. I jumped off the tractor and ran back out the gate to shoo them inside again. Oh, silly me. How I underestimated the intelligence and playful spirit of these two:

They kept just out of reach, dancing away whenever I got close enough to reach for them. It was a wonderful, happy game for them, a real problem for me, especially when they got near the road:

They tasted lilac bushes and fruit trees just for the fun of it, but mostly were gobbling up the green grass as fast as they could. The cows, lounging comfortably inside the fence, seemed uninterested:

But then Rosella figured out what was happening and ran out the fence too. Then all the other cows (except Amy, who had a brand new calf) followed Rosella's example:

Then I had five cows and two horses, all running around the yard, threatening to go into the road and having a grand time, kicking up their heels and playing keep-away whenever I tried to move them back toward the gate:

Then several of the cows broke off and headed toward the gravel road:

Violet and Seamus touched noses through the fence, both wondering what sort of strange animal the other might be. But that was my last photo as the cows took off running down the gravel road. Luckily, a passerby stopped to help and we got the cows back inside the fence. Then we used bowls of grain to get the horses to hold still while we clipped leads on their collars. Finally all was well, though I was pretty much lame from all the running around on my damaged ankles: