Darn Cow

I had a really busy day yesterday–went to the Women in Agriculture day in Spencer, put on by the county extension service. When I got home, I was getting ready for a workshop here this weekend. I went to visit Glory Bee. I like to see my cows every day, but sometimes I’m busy/lazy. I’m involved in a “Glory Bee Project” (which I’ll post about sometime soon) so almost every day, I go into the field to work with her. The day before yesterday, I could see Glory Bee from the road, so I called it good and went about my busy business. After all, BP’s not going anywhere and she stands in the creek most of the time this summer, and is hard to see. If I can see Glory Bee, then I know the rascal is in, and she wouldn’t want to be in without her mommy, now would she? That would be behaving beyond the call of duty.

But yesterday I couldn’t see Glory Bee from the road, so I thought I’d better make time for an actual visit. I found Glory Bee hiding in the creek, but no mommy. I kept walking and walking, back and back into the field along the creek. No BP. I called her and called her. Finally I heard her–up on the hill above the creek. It’s steep there and the cows don’t like to go up there, especially BP, who is not that agile. But, whew, I was starting to think she must be DEAD, so I was glad to hear her. The woods are thick and I couldn’t see her, but her moo sounded zen, so I exited the field satisfied.

Wrong!

About an hour later, I heard from my neighbor on up the road. “Your cow is in our yard.”

OH.

BP was quite comfortable, having moved in with the teenage girls. She was experiencing no angst to return home. I think, in fact, based on the poop collection in their field that she may have been there since the evening before when I hadn’t seen her in my field. The back of their field backs up to the hill at the back of my field.

She wouldn’t even look at me.

She’s had a ‘tude since she retired. Pretty soon she’ll be wearing purple hats and getting drunk on cruises.

There was a lot of pulling and begging involved. I told neighbor girl weedeater Burgundy to find a stick and swat her bottom to get her moving. When BP gets stubborn like that, she digs in her hooves and simply will not budge. A swat to the bottom will get her moving. It would have been extremely difficult to try to take her back the way she came, so I had to take her around on the road, the long way.

Burgundy swatted BP with all the force with which she might pet a butterfly. I managed to eventually get BP as far as the end of their driveway, which was still a good quarter mile from my farm, and this had already taken 20 minutes, when her dad and boyfriend happened by. I threw myself upon Burgundy’s boyfriend, another one of my weedeating teenagers, and he took over the swatting. Now we were in business.

He doesn’t pet butterflies.

Five minutes later, I had mommy and her pregnant baby back together.

Where she got out is a very difficult place for the cows to get to, though obviously they CAN, but I’m not considering the risk too high of an immediate repeat. I’ll have it repaired next time my hired man is out.

Glory Bee was very excited to see mommy.

I don’t think BP cared. She missed the teenage girls.

“We were going to paint our nails and play Parcheesi!”