The Other Side

The other day, Adam was doing some weeding around the house.  When he had a full wheelbarrow, he took it to the compost pile to be dumped.  And there he noticed a yak pile.  It wasn't on the compost pile itself, but near the pile.  And it was fresh. 

Adam walked the fences, but everyone was inside, munching away.  No signs of where this fresh pile of yak dung could have come from.

A few hours later, he found his culprit.  Niobe.  Outside the fence, eating happily.  When she saw him, she got a little huffy in a "you weren't supposed to be out here right now" sort of way, turned around and stomped back into the paddock.  Through the electric fence.

Yes, that's right.  The yak has figured out that the bottom wire is not live.  So if she times it correctly, she can stop over the bottom wire, duck under the first live wire and make it to the outside.  If she's fast enough, she barely gets zapped.  We've watched her not only figure out how to do this, but to plan ahead between the ticking of the electric fence so that she can make it through between the zaps.  Our yaks does math.  We're a little terrified. 

This went on for another day or two, with Niobe sneaking out and Adam catching her.  Each time, she didn't even have the grace to look guilty.  She would flounce (seriously, this yak flounces) back inside the fence and defiantly give him the look the says "You can't stay out here forever.  As soon as you go inside, I'm going right back out."

So now we have a yak smart enough to come and go as she pleases.  That was bad enough, but the very last straw was when we woke up to find yak poop in the driveway.  Not only was she escaping, but she was coming ever closer to the house.   At that point, I started fully expecting to look over one evening and see a fuzzy yak head peering through the window, watching Master Chef with me. 

So this week Adam and his brother in law Josh have been out every night stringing barbed wire above and below the electric wires.  The other five yaks couldn't care less, and mostly ignore them.  But Niobe is livid.  She stands there and stares at them, grunting angrily the whole time they're working.  Plus, she's now frantically trying to eat ahead of the new fence line, so every morning Adam finds new piles just beyond where he finished the night before.

Apparently, the grass really is greener on the other side.