"Ring, Ring, Your cows are out!"

That's right, they were... I got a phone call from a neighbor at 10:00 tonight, stating that our cows were in his field. "Oh no!" I rushed out to the shop where the guys were switching tires around on tractors and told them the news. Everyone dropped everything (gently) and got ready to go. Jacob & I went in Andrew's Ram; Dad and Andrew took their dirt-bikes; and Mom was still in Bismarck, so missed out on the fun. As it was nearly dark out when we headed up the road, I didn't appreciate it when the headlights went off and the motor stopped in the Ram! Thankfully the guys were behind me on their bikes and were able to get me going again, only to have more trouble down the road. I finally worked out this system--I could leave the lights on dim while cruising down the road, and then turn them off when I needed to make the corner! We made it safely up to the pasture (about 4 miles NW of our place) and, after the cows were in and the fence was fixed, Andrew had a moment to look under the hood of the Ram. Thankfully he had his flashlight along! He found that the grounding wire on the battery (I think that's what he said it was?) wasn't connecting very well, so he fixed it and we had a delightful journey home, where we found Mother waiting for us.

The earlier part of our day was spent in the hay field for most of my family, and in the garden for me. One of my/our afternoon chores every hot day is to feed a bottle of water to all 10 of the calves. A few of them are fighting the usual scours bug that they get after the stress of moving to a new place, so that takes extra work to deal with.

Oh, I took some pictures of our garden today. It's finally looking like something more than a giant weed-patch, so I thought I'd share the pictures here:

The potatoes are really doing well...
The zucchini are too...
The corn is already knee-high on me--if I pull the leaf up! This is open-pollinated popcorn...

And now it's time to get some rest, as I think we have a long day ahead of us once more, come sunrise.