Cows

A couple weeks ago Curt went against my wishes and borrowed not one, but two cows from a friend. She is letting him keep them for a while as a trial run. This is the same woman who tried to talk him out of keeping cows in our yard in the first place (bless her heart). I told Curt I don't care what happens to them, I will not help feed or water them, and I would let them run away or starve if it came down to it, but by now he has found out I'm just a big talker and will actually help avoid a cow disaster. I was sitting on the deck eating my lunch the other day when I heard an odd noise and saw Sadie perk up. I turned around and about had a heart attack when I saw the cows standing in the yard. They were mosying about, rubbing against our newly-planted apple trees and eating grass. I called Curt at work and of course he couldn't come home, so I had to do something. He coached me over the phone as I lured them back into their pen with a scoop of grain. Although the cows are not that big yet, they scare me, so I just try to yell loudly and boss them around so they will hopefully become more scared of me than I am of them. This marks the second time that I've successfully gotten the cows back into the gate all by myself without stepping in any of the cow patties that now litter the yard and lie close to the inside of the gate. I am proud of that.

We were out of town overnight for the 4th. Saturday night when we got home, it was after 1:00 a.m., and Curt drove the truck over by the shed so he could unload wood for the stove the next day. We saw in the headlights that both cows were lying down just inside the fence and were super relieved that they hadn't escaped while we were gone. So I was carrying Jackson to the house while Curt began hauling stuff in, and he comes out of the sliding glass door as I'm climbing the deck steps and says, "Holy shit, what's that?" Keep in mind that it's pitch-black and very late. So I haul ass up the steps as much as possible with a sleeping child in my arms, turn around, and see a figure in the dark just a few yards from the deck. I begin shaking. We both just stand there, looking at it and trying to figure it out for a second. I moved closer (can you imagine?) and calmly said to Curt, "Holy shit, get your light. That looks like a person." (I am shivering right now just writing this.) Thank God I had Jackson with me, or I would not have been able to maintain my calm. I was freaking out on the inside. So Curt flips on the deck light, which isn't too powerful, and marches down the steps towards the figure. I quickly grabbed the spotlight out of the cupboard, turned it on, and shined it at the figure. Relief washed over me when I saw two blue, glowing cow eyes looking back at me through the light beam. Thank the Lord. We both let out huge sighs of relief. Curt goes, "I thought it was a ghost!" You would not believe how much that damned animal looked like a medium-sized human child standing there in the dark. We couldn't see the bulk of it - the back third - just the shadowy front portion that was clearly some sort of being's body. Apparently this cow had been lying just outside the fence, not inside like we had thought, and was curious to see what was going on in the middle of the night. I put Jackson to bed and couldn't stop (slightly) shaking for the next fifteen minutes, no joke.

Here are the animals that have begun to ruin my life.