STAMPEDE

Well, the cows are losing their charm. I'm preparing to change my vote from phone # on their sides to electric fence. I walked into my office yesterday and caught the vision of the mother cow out of the corner of my eye. She was 2-3 feet from the guest bedroom window--right next to the front door and porch. I used to joke about the song "Grandma got run over by a reindeer" because of deer running around out here, but a 5 hundred + pound cow is even less appealing. I have seen them all romp and play, so I know they can run.....and I don't want to be in their way when they do. I had visions of myself having walked out the front door, being startle with a scream, and her running me down as she headed in the direction of her home.


I decided we needed to start discouraging them, so I opened the window, clapped my hands, and said go home--in a loud scary voice. You know from previous posts that the ducks and squirrels are not very afraid of me when I try to discourage them from the bird feeders. Apparently, she was not very intimidated either and just sort of looked at me. I wasn't sure if I should be scared of her. I said to Stan last week when the little male just stood his ground and stared, "cows aren't aggressive, are they?". He said, "Have you seen a bull fight?" Anyway, she did finally meander down toward the lake, collected her 4 calves, and headed to the opening in the woods where they generally go home. I opened my back window, clapped, and said "go home" again to encourage their movement. They stopped, there was apparently a time delay,and all of the sudden they started stampeding in the opposite direction across the damn, and over the hill. There are woods on both sides of the other lake over there behind ours and two large houses.

I could not tell where they went until I saw in the distance 3 of the four of them still in stampede mode running in front of one of those house--probably close to the road in the direction of their house. There are children and dogs over there and I could here what may have been several neighbors and the owners yelling. Hopefully no one was injured.

The next thing I could hear was the most pitiful and loud bauling from one of the calves who had apparently gone right when everyone else finally got their bearings and went left. I was afraid he/she may have gotten hit by a car , it was so loud and pitiful. Then mom and siblings started mooing loudly back to give some direction I suppose. A few minutes later, I saw this last lost calf go running through the same yards and the children yelling again. Again, I hope no one was hurt.

Although for a city girl, seeing cows this close was fun at first, I'm not so much for being part of this free range cattle ranch anymore and am changing my vote. In the meantime, anyone have any cow repellent ideas?

They're back !

They have actually been over several times this week, but I had a chance to take more pictures today. When we herd them toward home, Maggie is getting pretty good at keeping them on the path in the right direction. We headed them toward home twice today,and the neighbors did once. Perhaps the phone number on their side is not a bad idea since they are starting to wander farther. They do have the pull of mom when they get hungry to keep them from going to far for too long.

cows

We have had several ununusual animal adventures. In our first house, the neighbors had llamas, and they would occasionally be standing in the middle of the road when you rounded our corner. At that same house, we went out one morning to go to church and our dog (Strider, at the time) went crazy barking at a MONKEY in our tree. We lived quite close (walking distance) to our zoo, so that was the first call I made. It wasn't theirs, but they were aware of someone close by that had a pet monkey that often got lose. I called, but by then the monkey had taken off. I don't know if they ever reunited.

This was the view out our bedroom window when we woke (or I woke and then woke Stan) on Saturday m0rning. I first saw just one calf, then another, then mom, then another calf. We both grabbed phones. I took pictures and Stan took a video. In the video, he captured mom, with her back to us, turning her head and staring right at us for a while and then trotting off--one calf following. The others grazed at the edge of the woods until I went out another door and spooked them.

They live in the pasture through the woods--not very far. This is not their first visit to our yard. Before we built here, we lived next door. (What can I say--we like the neighborhood and neighbors) Anyway, one day I was on the riding more and Stan was pushing as I noticed a cow standing next to the pool. The pool had a substantial pool cover that people could walk on, but cows--not so much. I kept motioning to Stan and mouthing "a cow". Stan's hearing is not so good, and apparently, his lip reading is not so hot either. He thinks I'm saying "an owl", gives me a that's nice look, and moves on. Finally though, he sees him/her too. He gets off and shoos him toward home.

The owners say they can't keep them in the fence and are very apologetic, but I don't mind their occasional visit. One calf was in our woods this morning as Maggie and I walked. He didn't mind us walking 4-5 feet from him on our path and Maggie just sort of stopped and looked a couple of times. Of course, she and Darby ( much more adventurous when together) have been over in the cow pasture a few times, so she couldn't convince me she had never seen one of these before.

The owner visited for a bit last night. He says they are considering an electric fence. I sort of prefer his wife's suggestion on the phone that they just paint their phone numbers on all of them.