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For years an old friend admonished me never to raise livestock. John recounted his days of producing Angus beef, of always fixing fences and chasing runaway bulls. Then one year, he finally sold his cattle and turned to farming strawberries, wondering why he hadn't changed sooner. With every telling, when John ended his parable, he leaned forward and added this: "Remember, Jim, plants don't jump fences."

I listened to his advice for more than a decade, but that all changed recently. On our farm we have 25 acres of pasture, open land too hilly to mow for hay but ideal for raising livestock. Through a friend we found Tim, a cattle farmer interested in grazing 20 steers on the acreage for the summer. Because Tim lives an hour away and operates two other large farms, we agreed to check on these bovines as part of the deal. An easy request, it seems, because we walk by the pasture daily, and because the fence, I thought, was in good repair.

Late in April, Tim showed up with two trailers and several thousand pounds of frightened animals. He opened the trailers' gates, but the skittish steers had to be driven out. They jumped and galloped 50 feet before gathering in a huddle to look around. They were smaller than I expected, big calves really, and all different breeds.

Tim sensed my surprise and said, "They're a motley crew, aren't they?" Some had the all-black, stocky bodies of Angus, others the white of Charolais, and several had the mixed-up markings of Angus, Holstein, Hereford and whatever else thrown in. Then I noticed the soft tan and long eyelashes of three others and asked whether they were Jersey.

Tim said probably so. He bought them all at auction, so he didn't really know their genetic history. Then he added, "Not much to look at now, but given good rains, they'll put on several pounds a week on this grass. By the end of the summer, they'll be good size."

Tim gave us a list of the steers, each ear tag number beside a brief description. Then he added his phone number and implied we should call only in an emergency. I didn't expect any emergencies.

For the first month or so, all was bliss with our happy little herd. They wandered the hills, slurped from the troughs, bedded down in the deep woods during the hot afternoons. We hiked our trail on the opposite side of the stream every day, and usually we saw the young bovines munching grass or soaking in the shady cool. Two or three times a week, we counted all 20 of them, which was not an easy task.

One afternoon, Sarah came back from her walk and said she counted only 19. "Are you sure?" I asked. "I counted several times, and always came up one short," she replied, a little annoyed at my doubt. But how could we lose a steer? The fence is good, so did the calf eat something and die?

This fear pushed me through the gate and into every cranny of the 25 acres. All I discovered were the other calves. Where did it go? And was this enough of an emergency to call Tim?

Then Sarah said, "Maybe it jumped the fence. Maybe it's with Bucky's [our neighbor's] cows." I had already walked most of the line, but the next day, I hiked again the miles of perimeter, and finally in a thicket, I found a busted section of wire, a hole the size of a calf.

I crawled through and started searching Bucky's 200 acres. In a walnut grove, I came across the herd of loafing Angus, and sure enough, right in the middle, was a calf that didn't fit, one of those Jerseys with long eyelashes and an ear tag. Number 118. "What are you doing here, fellow?" I asked, and he just looked the other way. When I approached, the whole herd wandered away. Then I remembered John's warnings.

I had seen Bucky call his cattle by pouring grain on the ground, waving the empty bag, and yelling, "Come on! Come on!" The next day, I bought 10 bags at the mill in town and practiced on our herd. They ignored my yells but eventually smelled the sweet mixture and snuffled and licked it from the ground.

Bucky's cattle were already trained, and even though I can't yell like him, they soon came running. I walked among them, spreading out more grain, trying to get close to 118. I hadn't figured out what I would do if I did get close. Once or twice, I almost had the skittish Jersey calf where I needed him, but soon he grew wise and didn't participate in the mass feeding frenzy. Instead he just stood off to the side, warily watching me.

A week later, three other of our calves escaped through a different hole. I heard John, my old friend, laughing in my ear. Finally, I asked for Bucky's help. I had patched the fence, and he had seen his "extra" calves. He said he would bring them over, but it would have to wait a few weeks until he penned the whole herd. And sure enough, one day we counted our diminishing responsibilities to find they had suddenly, thankfully, returned to their original numbers. And I never had to call Tim.

Even though it took a month for 118 to return, the cows eventually came home.

Jim Minick lives on a farm in Wythe County and teaches at Radford University.