There's a Cow, in My Backyard!

We've Seen Some Strange Things Since We Moved Out Into The Country

For our 'country life' natives, this may not seem like any big deal, but for this city girl, coming home from the grocery store to find a cow in my backyard was quite an event! This story can be taken one of two ways, either you will be shocked as I was that there was a cow in my yard, or more likely you will find it hysterical.

If you fit into the later category of my readers, it's okay, go ahead and have a good laugh on me. I believe that laughter is good for the soul, and that God wants us to find the humor in our everyday lives. If I didn't believe this, I wouldn't be telling this story now!

So, as the story goes, I came home from the grocery store one day only to notice something was not right with my house. I couldn't believe my eyes; a cow from a nearby field had gotten loose and was walking around in my backyard! My biggest fear was that this dumb cow was going to continue walking through my yard and right onto the busy highway, just a few hundred feet away.

Being fairly new to the area, the first thing I did after getting my small children inside the house was to telephone the neighbors to see what I should do. So as I'm trying to reach the neighbors by phone, I'm also watching out my kitchen window to make sure this adorable brown cow doesn't get any closer to the highway. Just my luck, no one was home! At the same time I discover my neighbors are unavailable to offer assistance, I see that the cow is indeed headed towards the busy highway!

Giving up on finding help, I tell my children to stay in the house, as I adventure out to solve this problem myself. At first, the cow suddenly started coming towards me, and having no experience at this I wasn't quite sure what it was going to do. I backed up and started to rethink my plan. Then I realized the cow was actually quite small, and that it must be a young calf. So, now putting my fear aside, I start to walk towards the cow as well. But as soon as I do this, he turns in the other direction again, and starts heading for the road!

Reacting quickly, I run on the outside of his path, cutting him off before he crosses the bridge that leads across the creek. But it was a close call, that baby cow was determined to have quite an adventure I'll say. As soon as I got him away from the bridge and halfway across the yard, back to where he got out from the fence in the first place, he turned around and went right back towards the highway, again!

I called out to him and clapped my hands; I did everything I could think of to round him back in the right direction. Finally, getting tired of being harassed I guess, he suddenly took a short cut and crossed through the creek from my backyard and squeezed under the barb wired fence even though it looked quite painful. Oh yes, and I forgot to mention that the entire time this was going on, apparently what must have been this calf's mother was on the other side of the fence mooing up quite a storm. She was looking at me like she was making plans for my demise if I came too close to her baby!

But all ended well, the calf was finally back under the fence with it's mother, and the two of them were heading back across the field. It was only then that I noticed the baby cow had also left several large piles of something rather unpleasant in my back yard. And just a few moments later, I noticed my neighbor was finally returning home. I walked over and hollered to her across the way what had happened. To my utmost surprise, she replied "Oh yes, that happens all the time!" I couldn't believe it, why had no one warned us about this, like maybe before we moved in?

Apparently, the owner of the cows doesn't worry about them getting loose and making it to the highway because they will not usually stray too far away from their mothers. So needless to say, the next few times this precious young calf came for a visit, once even blocking our driveway in the front yard, we simply mooed hello back to him, took a few pictures and went on about our day. This country life can sure take some getting use to, but I think we're getting along okay!