God bless pet heifers***

***(And a pox on men who leave gates open)…

I was peacefully comparing prices today, trying to figure out whether it would behoove me to change to Road Runner and digital phone, eschewing the frustrations of dial-up and AT&T, for just about eleven dollars extra a month. I had a really helpful salesperson on the phone and was about to make a deal, when three heifers caromed off the snow banks by the garden pond and headed down the hill.

I looked over toward the barn and, sure enough, the guys had finished up feeding, gone on to the next chore, and left the gate open. Muttering words that would melt the computer if I typed them, I quickly excused myself from wheeler-dealing and raced out of the house in my soft, worn, leather house loafers. (The low ones that an inch of snow will fill in an instant. Trust me, we have a bit more than an inch.)

The heifers were more than halfway down the driveway by the time I got to the front yard with a bucket and some chicken feed pellets, which is what was handy on the porch. They were also between me and the state highway and the Interstate and closer to the latter than to me...down to the last curve and actually almost out of sight of the house, maybe five car lengths from the highway.

What do you do in a situation like that? There was no way I could get ahead of them to stop them from going into the road. If I went farther down the drive, they would be likely to run away just for the fun of it, and get there sooner rather than later. A bad situation.

So, I did what any self-respecting cow spoiler would do and called them. The odds of them coming, having never been called in for feed or anything before were slim, but I was plumb out of choices. I hollered, “E….come on baby, co boss, co E,” and rattled my pail of chicken feed.

And (thank God for his eternal goodness), my pet heifer, E Train, threw up her head and galloped back up the hill to me, a goodly tenth of a mile. She didn't really want the chicken feed but she followed me to the fork in the driveway anyhow, head in the bucket, with her runaway buddies in tow. There I managed to get behind them, and with a few side trips to leap through five-foot snowdrifts and sniff cats, they went back to the cow barnyard where they belong. I am more than slightly grateful that they didn’t get down on the road and cause an accident, and more then ever glad of E.