Cow Hide and Seek

Money always seems tight on the farm, so sometimes you learn to make do by rigging things that wouldn’t ordinarily be used for a project. This is what happened when a group of us built an enclosure for the rescued cows. We used things lying around the farm, including old gates, rails, posts, nylon rope and our imaginations. Within a few hours the cows had a new home, even if it was the most whimsical looking enclosure in the history of cow farms. With no cow keeping experience among us, we still felt confident we had made do for the time being. We had taken into consideration that cows weren’t like horses. Cows are usually pretty passive, and happy to stay in an area as long as they’re being fed. We turned out to be wrong.

A few hours later, I was back on my horse and riding back from the trail. I l looked over to admire our new cow corral, and suddenly I felt my eyes bug out, and my stomach drop. There were no cows inside the enclosure. I couldn’t see how they escaped, or any clues as to where they went. Five huge cows, poof, gone. I rode as fast as I could down to the horse pasture where Wilbur was feeding the horses, and in very bad Spanish yelled, “the cows are gone.” He must have understood because he jumped onto the Toro and flew back towards the cow corral. I started riding around on my horse, and made it to the tractor barn where I heard a very loud moooooo. Deep in the barn was a massive cow standing in the dark. I maneuvered my horse back carefully, and got behind the cow to drive him forward past the tractors. I couldn’t believe I was playing hide and seek with a bunch of cows!

Within fifteen minutes we found all but one. They are herding animals, so they continued to call for their missing friend. I climbed up on a giant pile of hay, looked around the corner, and there she was walking down the front driveway, heading for the road. Maybe she was deaf, or maybe she just needed time away from the rest, but she wasn’t interested in coming back on her own. Wilbur laughed and grabbed a rope to bring her back. I still look at her today and wonder where she would have gone that day if we would have let her keep going.