The Sweeper & The Herder

The weekend began with my husband saying: "I should get the leaves up off the lawn.  It's about that time." Which, for me, means, picture time (everything can be a blog post around here)!  I'm here for you.

I give you: The Sweeper!  It's cool.

I give you: The Pesky Steer, who likes to chase the sweeper.

And the 4-Wheeler.

And us.

Where's the shovel?

B-Lowe said he got "ME" a new pin-thingy to easily attach the sweeper to the riding lawn mower.  Isn't that nice?  

As you can see, it works great.  

Sweep,

Sweep,

Sweep-idy-sweep.

Eventually, the sweeper gets full and you need a plan.  Or, a guy with a plan--that's the route I take.  

Remember the post about B-Lowe teaching the steer to stay?  You're about to see the fruit of his genius. 

He pulls back the electric wire.  I took pictures.  It's what I do.

He tells ME to get on the mower-thingy (that's its scientific term) and pull the sweeper through.

While he blocks the gate with the 4-wheeler.

"Keep going to the back!  We'll empty the sweeper back there" he says.

So I push on.

B-Lowe maneuvers the 4-wheeler in order to do something unknown to me.  I'm just driving this thing.

I hope he has a plan.  Otherwise, it's me, a full sweeper, 

a cow, and a Standard Poodle.

Speaking of a Standard Poodle, is she doing what I think she's doing?

Is she keeping the steer away from the humans at work?

B-Lowe must have noticed too...

Because he's telling her to do it again.

Uh-oh!  I hope she hurry's it up because he's coming my way to be pesky.

 She approaches (she's on the far left of this picture).

She gets his attention.

She turns him around.

He turns her around.  Stubborn little steer.

But she's quicker.

And smarter.

And apparently, she has God-given herding instincts.

Which is fine with us because in the mean-time, B-Lowe walked to the back of the pasture, he had me drive the mower forward while he emptied the sweeper, then we headed back to the gate.

B-Lowe waited for me on the 4-wheeler.  Jesse received praise for her efforts to this successful operation.

And she kept it up!

I pulled the sweeper forward.  She kept the steer away from the open gate.

B-Lowe quickly re-positioned the 4-wheeler back to a blocking position.

Jesse took care of the bovine.

Gate is blocked.

B-Lowe thought that worked out great.  A real team effort!  

In fact, he thought it worked out SO well, he removed his jacket and told me to put it on and keep sweeping.

Hey!  What?!  

B-Lowe, can we talk?  I take the pictures, you do the yard stuff.  

He grinned and told me to keep going.

Drat!

What are you ducks looking at?  Go, lay an egg or something!!!