Surprise visit from the neighbor's cows

About 8:30 p.m. last night I received a phone call from my father, Bill, asking if I would phone our friend and neighbor and ask her if her cows had gotten out. Anywhere else in the world that phrase could be the basis of a prank call for 13-year-olds, but here it means exactly what it sounds like: there are mysterious cows on your property which need to be returned home. As cows aren't exactly the swiftest-moving animals, we then assume they must belong to a neighbor. All it takes is a few phone calls and their home is usually found.

We haven't had cows here on the property since I was a kid, so Joe and I had to go down and take a look. Sure enough, two black and white cows and one cream-colored cow (steers, actually) were happily exploring our hay field and tasting room pad. They were pulling bites off our baled hay and competing to see who could stand on the very top of the dirt piles. As my father explained, cows go nuts for fresh dirt. They love to stand on the piles and rub their faces in it - it's a bizarre thing that just seems to give them joy. If anyone has an explanation for this, by all means share it with me.

Anyway, upon finding out the neighbor was in another part of the state, we shut all the gates, parked a few cars in front of the space with no gate, and left them to play until her workers could come the next morning to herd them out, down and across the highway. Not much coercing was needed as they were pretty tame - they just followed the grain bucket home.

Our McNab Shepherd, Dexter, who came from a cattle ranch but has never seen a cow up close, silently followed them up and down the fence. He seemed to think that something should be done with them. I've only seen him stalk the water bowl that slowly and quietly.

For some reason my blog account is acting up, but I have photos of the cute little guys and will add soon...

Comments

Unknown said…
Does anyone live in a subdivision where there are several people who ignore the subdivision rules?
I do. No one is supposed to have those ugly fences on the top of their pools, and it seems that everyone in the sub with a pool
has one of those. My neighbor has one, and I have to look at that hideous thing every time I look out my window. Then there is my other neighbor who has three dogs.
The maximum number of dogs is supposed to be two. I wouldn't mind the three, but two of them are pit bulls who viciously snarl and growl and act like they are going
to eat my dog when they are outside. Even the owners scream at them to stop. It is very unnerving. Then one of the board members is delinquent by 3 years on the dues because she
has decided she doesn't need to pay since she is on the board. I can't take the neighbors around here. I was looking for a forum to vent about the jerks around here and I came across this site
called http://urajerk.com and I sent all of those idiots on the board and all my lovely neighbors with the ugly pools an anonymous card. LOL I loved it. I know it sounds stupid but I feel better. He he he
bh

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