Running After Cows

Not my thing.....but done as needed. Yesterday a small but determined cadre of cows (towards whom I am harboring unkind thoughts) pushed down the electric fence and just ran. Normally if they get out they just eat the grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side and you can round them up. Not this bunch.

They gathered just outside the fence girding their loins for flight. I tried to ease through them and point them back toward the pasture. Instead they took off running.

Not in fear. They just knew they were out and wanted to play.

I raced around the house to try to head them off (circle driveway you see).

I almost made it too.

But not quite. They were on a hot jog headed for a busy state highway, another busy highway, and a major interstate, depending on how fast they ran or which way they turned. I took off across the long lawn, (so called because it is long), hoping once again to get ahead of them. At the end of that yard is a head-high wilderness tangle of brush and brambles and who knows what. The only way down to the driveway to head off the cows is through it. To even go a foot I had to put my stick on top of it, stomp it down and proceed.

I tried but I am about as athletic as an elderly broody hen. And it was very thick. I fell down a little bank and got stuck under a mass of raspberries vines. I had to slide back up the hill on my fanny to even get out. I couldn't see or hear a cow.

I was praying hard and I'll make no bones about it. In our state the farmer is liable if cows get in the road. We have insurance but.it is never enough.

Finally, sobbing with frustration and fear and raspberry cuts I tumbled out onto the driveway. Incredibly, just below me stood the cows, milling in a confused pod of black and white. I knew I could never get between them and the road so I called and coaxed and walked away trying to get them to follow.

To my utter amazement they did and I soon saw why. Liz, who uses her head for something besides to keep her ears apart had jumped in her truck (far behind the ravening mob), got her dad to open the gate at the barn, went down that driveway,and up the highway to the bottom of the house driveway where the little b&&*((rds were. (We have two driveways, quite some distance apart with lots of gates.)

I don't know how she did it. I was way ahead of her and she had to go in the other direction, open a huge pair of gates, drive at least a quarter mile, when they only had a few yards to go to the road. She said later that corners on two wheels and the speedometer reading eighty had something to do with winning the race.

Doesn't matter. She saved our bacon...or should I say, beef? And believe it or not those darned sons of guns went up in the pasture where they belong, gathered up all the rest of the cows and came tearing down the hill for another go round. Fortunately Liz and I were both standing there waving sticks.

Soon they were closed up where they belong. I have no idea what possessed them to run. I also have no idea what possessed the boss to leave us to chase them while he went back to the barn to finish chores. It was an emergency and a big one but beyond opening the gate he just ignored it. Did he not get what was going on? I don't know and I am not going to ask, but we sure could have used some help.

However, being tough farm women (and one of us is even smart) we got it done.