There is a trick to herding cows. My observations are they do it differently in
the South as opposed to the Midwest.
Doug's beach bum sister and her accountant husband own many
acres in south Florida. The natural thing to do with it is to
purchase livestock. Cows are cute and
smart. Why not buy three of those?
Makes sense to me.
Except I guess you have to check to make sure they have a tail and are
not pregnant. While baby cows are cute
too, they are a bit skittish.
My photo hound husband was sneaking up on the sleeping baby
cow with camera in hand. A tap-tap to
the rump and baby was awake and darting across the field through the barb wire
fence. Pointed wire obviously does not
slow down baby cows.
His sister knew how to get baby back on the right side of
the fence. Just call it. "Here cow, cow, cow. Here cow, cow, cow." We waited while baby ambled further into the
neighbor's field.
She hollered at her son, "Bring the cow's ball. We'll throw it and baby will chase it on this
side of the fence." Wow! She has a dog-cow.
Thirty-three throws later, her arm was sore and the cow was
happily munching grass under the neighbor's tree. "Just leave it," reasoned her
husband. "He'll come back through
the barb wire tonight."
His sister and her family scuffed into the house. That's when Doug, Nicole, Candace, and myself
got to work. I can not tell you how we
got baby to the right side of the fence.
But I can assure you no cows were harmed in the process.
Midwesterners are real cowboys. I experienced an escaped cow round up on my
way home the other evening.
A truck in front of me was driving at a snails pace with
it's emergency lights on. I noticed
another truck about a half mile ahead on the hill stopped with it's emergency
lights on also. Then I saw them. Four escaped convict cows being herded by a
madman (I mean angry!) on a four wheeler.
The four wheeler was chasing those cows toward the pen a
half mile away. The cows stampeded from one side of the road to the other. The madman zigzagged behind them, losing
traction in the fresh mud.
The cows darted down the stream by the road. I noticed a girl in grass up to her waist
waving her arms and yelling at the cows. (No, she was not yelling "cow,
cow.") As the cows turned around
she bobbed through the grass after them.
Back on the road the four wheeler resumed it's quest to the
pen. Other people appeared out of the
grass by the side of the road to cheer someone on. The madman or the cows? I wasn't sure. But the cows stomped by them and the madman
slung mud on them as he continued his weaving down the road.
Twenty-two minutes later the cows were back in the pen. I could now drive by the weary mud covered
group. The madman was letting a fence
post hold him up. The girl from the
grass was removing her boots. I think
she should have had waders instead. Her
blue jeans were black and stiff with mud way past her knees.
The cows were gazing down the road where they had come
from. They had escaped to the nearby hog
confinement. It must have been some
party there that lasted until the cows came home.
