Hi Kids!
I’m sure most of you will have some interesting “critter-tractor” encounter stories to relate and I’m eager to hear them. Here are some of mine:
A few years back and shortly after moving to the country I had just finished clearing a woods trail. Upon reaching the end I turned the tractor around to return home when I saw that the trail was completely blocked by a large herd of young dairy cows that must have escaped from a local farm! I should mention that prior to this incident my close encounters with a large loose herd of cows consisted of looking closely at a cardboard milk carton! I tried driving the tractor forward and the cows were having none of that. Not wanting to hurt a cow or dent my newly acquired tractor I exited the tractor and got a branch to confront these monsters. Even though completely intimidated and remembering all the movies scenes of people being trampled by stampedes …..I managed to herd the cows to our house. The farmer had missed his cows and was on our front porch with my wife upon my arrival. I’m not sure if it was the ten foot long branch I carried or the nervously voiced “shoo-cow” from me, however, they both had a good deal of trouble stifling laughter at the scene presented to them.
Then there was the time I had set aside three days to brush hog our entrance drive field and turn it into a lawn. I’d just started brush-hogging when both our Brittany Spaniels went nuts in the middle of the field. I stopped the tractor where the dogs were making all the commotion and saw a beautiful pair of deer fawns nestled in the high grass. I got the wife and she saw the fawns and yet another single newly dropped fawn to the other side of the field. The project was put on hold at this favored birth site.
We frequently encounter moose on the property and they always gallop off into the deeper woods. On this occasion I was departing our bass pond on the tractor and was confronted by a large cow moose that had no intentions of leaving the path. She seemed upset and did not have the look of love in her eyes. I looked out the tractor rear window and sure enough there was her baby munching grass on the edge of the pond. It is not a good thing to be between a mother moose and her offspring! She advanced and I backed up….hastily! Luckily, the baby moose romped around the tractor and both disappeared into the deep woods. Whew!
Most of the bears in this area are quite small….usually the size of Labrador Retriever…..except one! I was sitting on the seat of my backhoe and breaking away a wall in our gravel pit when I had the feeling I was being watched? I had been working this site for a couple of days and on the prior day I’d broken out a large bee nest in an old log at the top of the gravel pit. Still feeling “uneasy” about being “watched” I backed the tractor to the far edge of the gravel pit and just sat there. Sure enough, in about five minutes 450 pounds of black bear ambled out of the far woods and headed directly to that bee hive log! I left him to his sweets! I came back later to get a photograph of the bear, however, all I could photograph was his enormous track in the dirt…..which I’ve attached. I now always carry a small digital camera when using the tractor as the wife was starting to doubt the authenticity of some of my critter-tractor encounters!
Ken
I’m sure most of you will have some interesting “critter-tractor” encounter stories to relate and I’m eager to hear them. Here are some of mine:
A few years back and shortly after moving to the country I had just finished clearing a woods trail. Upon reaching the end I turned the tractor around to return home when I saw that the trail was completely blocked by a large herd of young dairy cows that must have escaped from a local farm! I should mention that prior to this incident my close encounters with a large loose herd of cows consisted of looking closely at a cardboard milk carton! I tried driving the tractor forward and the cows were having none of that. Not wanting to hurt a cow or dent my newly acquired tractor I exited the tractor and got a branch to confront these monsters. Even though completely intimidated and remembering all the movies scenes of people being trampled by stampedes …..I managed to herd the cows to our house. The farmer had missed his cows and was on our front porch with my wife upon my arrival. I’m not sure if it was the ten foot long branch I carried or the nervously voiced “shoo-cow” from me, however, they both had a good deal of trouble stifling laughter at the scene presented to them.
Then there was the time I had set aside three days to brush hog our entrance drive field and turn it into a lawn. I’d just started brush-hogging when both our Brittany Spaniels went nuts in the middle of the field. I stopped the tractor where the dogs were making all the commotion and saw a beautiful pair of deer fawns nestled in the high grass. I got the wife and she saw the fawns and yet another single newly dropped fawn to the other side of the field. The project was put on hold at this favored birth site.
We frequently encounter moose on the property and they always gallop off into the deeper woods. On this occasion I was departing our bass pond on the tractor and was confronted by a large cow moose that had no intentions of leaving the path. She seemed upset and did not have the look of love in her eyes. I looked out the tractor rear window and sure enough there was her baby munching grass on the edge of the pond. It is not a good thing to be between a mother moose and her offspring! She advanced and I backed up….hastily! Luckily, the baby moose romped around the tractor and both disappeared into the deep woods. Whew!
Most of the bears in this area are quite small….usually the size of Labrador Retriever…..except one! I was sitting on the seat of my backhoe and breaking away a wall in our gravel pit when I had the feeling I was being watched? I had been working this site for a couple of days and on the prior day I’d broken out a large bee nest in an old log at the top of the gravel pit. Still feeling “uneasy” about being “watched” I backed the tractor to the far edge of the gravel pit and just sat there. Sure enough, in about five minutes 450 pounds of black bear ambled out of the far woods and headed directly to that bee hive log! I left him to his sweets! I came back later to get a photograph of the bear, however, all I could photograph was his enormous track in the dirt…..which I’ve attached. I now always carry a small digital camera when using the tractor as the wife was starting to doubt the authenticity of some of my critter-tractor encounters!
Ken
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