As you know Strickley has never followed the crowd when it comes to breeds. We are more than happy with our Dairy Shorthorns. But over the past few months there's been a foreign cow lurking in the fields nearer to Helm. One of our neighbours lets out some land for wintering cattle, and for the past few years these have been Highland cattle. Now they may look picturesque on a postcard from Scotland, but maybe south Lakeland is not the place for them. We thought they had all gone back to their own farm, but rumours persisted that some one had seen a "Highlander" in our fields. Not only near to where it had got over a fence/hedge/wall but almost a mile away in a neighbours garden. The rightful owners have almost given up on it, having failed to capture it even with a lasso, but we agreed with them that if we managed to pen it, they would come for it.
It's not always around, but today Arthur (busy walling) said he'd seen it. So a posse was rounded up and set off down the fields. It was successful in a way - the cow was cornered in a handling pen, but then it used it's built in tools (long horns) to lift the gate off and away it went.
James managed to capture it on his camera phone, so click on the link below. But a word of warning, you will have to tilt your head to the left as it was filmed the wrong way round (and I haven't worked out how to rotate it without spending £20 to upgrade Quicktime or downloading some dodgy sounding software).
And, just because I can, here's a link to another Highlander.
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