Boyd Bear Tracks

As I've said in earlier posts, all I have to do is walk out the door and life can start to get exciting! The other day I was driving home from grocery shopping with Eliana, and we saw a cow walking down the road towards us. It looked somewhat like the cow that is tied up in the field out in front of our house. I decided I would do a good deed for the day and take it back where it belonged. I stopped the car, got out and tried to catch it; but, it turned away from me and went down a side street. I was parked in the middle of the road so I hopped in the car again and went after the cow.

I finally cornered her in a driveway with no way out. I grabbed her halter and then went to look for the rope that's usually in the trunk (dragging her behind me). Unfortunately, the trunk was full of groceries so I had to try to dig under them while holding the cow's halter. Then, I couldn't find the rope. Now I was in a quandry--if I let go of the cow she would get away and I may not be able to catch her again. I couldn't leave the car (and Ellie) and walk home because it was several blocks away. So what could I do? I decided that I would see if she would walk alongside the car if I put my hand out the car window and held her halter while I drove. She didn't seem to be afraid of the car, so I decided to do it. However, it was somewhat complicated because I had to turn the car around--how do you back up a cow? :-)! I eventually got out to the road again and began to drive slowly while holding the halter. The cow did pretty well. A couple of times I felt like she was going to jerk my arm off! And, I got a lot of funny looks and comments (like "Where's the barbeque?"). One lady wanted me to stop so she could take a picture of me with the cow, but there was no way I was going to stop and pose for a picture! So, I think she just took it "on the run".

At last, we got to our block and I went to go put her in the lot in front of our house. But, would you believe it, the cow was already there!!! Now I didn't know WHAT to do. I had someone's cow and I didn't know what to do with her. I decided to see if I could open the barb wire fence in the next lot over and put her in there. After searching around for a while (the whole time dragging the cow along by her halter), I discovered how to open the fence and I stuck her in there. The only problem was, I didn't know who her owner was to tell them where she was (it was pretty obvious that she needed to be milked). I decided I'd had enough fun for the day and that I wasn't going to try and milk her too :-). I figured when the man came to milk the cow that is in front of our house, he might milk her too (if her owner hadn't found her by then).

Her owner must have found her because by the next day she wasn't in the field any longer. And, I could comfort myself that I had saved her from being hit by a car (she was headed toward a very busy road!).

My neighbor told me later that I had really made her suffer. When I asked her what she meant she told me that she had seen me walking around outside with a huge cow. All she could think of was that I was going to get trampled or kicked or something and the baby might be hurt. The funny thing was, she didn't even come out to help! :-) I wasn't really worried about the cow. Once I had a hold on her halter she was pretty tame.