Not Quite Panic

After I hollered

A strange bird called this morning at nobody-else-up-yet-thirty.  The light lay golden like a mantle over the heifer pasture hill, the sky was plumed with pretty peach and purple fog, and the air was cool and clean.... I just had to go out with camera and binoculars.....

Up on the hillside, under the boss's leaning tree, I saw a great, big, black-and-white, cow belly, but no head showing in the grass.

Oh, no! We had several intense thunderstorms yesterday and the cows are on a steep hillside. Sometimes cattle roll the wrong way up on hills and die before they can be righted. It is very rare to see one lying flat out on her side unless something is wrong. (Horses on the other hand do it all the time and can scare the heck out of you.)

I thought it was old Neon Moon. What could have happened? Lightning? Bloat from being upside down? Bad thoughts raced through my head.

I hurried up where Mack was whipping around his circle barking and hollered, "Hey, you!"

A big horned head popped up out of the grass. It wasn't Moon at all, but her big daughter, Moonshine, who was just fine, and seemingly a bit irritated at being awakened after the restless night.

I was plumb relieved! I never did find that mystery bird. 

Mack