There are certain times in life when your phone rings, and your heart stops for a second. The middle of the night phone calls, that wake you from a peaceful slumber to dread in a nano second. Usually, your heart starts beating again, when it is a wrong number and all you get from the caller is, “Donde esta Juan?” I also get a similar reaction when my neighbors call. Let me clarify, we have 2 neighbors and we could NOT ask for better neighbors, however, when they call, my gut reaction is ‘Oh, Bad British Word’ and I often do not say ‘hello’, I answer with this country greeting, “Are my cows out?”
I was recently in town having dinner with our New Jersey City Guest, Number Two Son and My Girl, when My Sweet Neighbor Sue called and because we were eating, I did not answer. I breathed a sigh of relief when she did not leave a message. We finished our meal and headed home. We were about a third of a mile from home, passing one of Our Friend The Farmer’s fields, when we saw a big black cow. His cows were in an adjoining field so immediately we assumed, one of his cows was out….until we got closer. Agnes!!!
I slammed on the brakes of the truck, and I might have said a Bad British Word and kicked all the kids out to help wrangle her, including our New Jersey City Guest who was wearing cute City sandals and slightly intimidated by the large beast. My Girl and I quickly changed places, so she could drive the truck and I could help chase the cow. These two kids of mine live in the country, but not actually on purpose. The last time they truly wanted to be ‘country folk’ was about 20 years ago.
Number Two ran after Agnes all the time moving her toward the direction of our farm, extremely careful to not let her get farther out in the big field, because once that happens…well, let me just say, the bovine usually wins the race. We moved Agnes at a trot/run from one field, across the street, through the neighbor’s yard, where she stopped to poop in his freshly cut hay, back toward the City Guest (who tried to wave her City arms, but gave up and went for cover when the large cow came her way), down the driveway, into another large field, luckily back out into the road, where My Girl moved her down the road with the truck, into the driveway and back into OUR field, where she went to get a drink of water.
All the time you are chasing your cow, you are thinking, ‘Bad British Word, how did she get out? What fence to I need to fix tonight?’
These two suburban born kids are country kids now, whether they meant to learn how or not! They know exactly what to do, when the cow gets out. They might be wearing sandals and shorts, but they get the job done…and with sweat streaming down their faces say things like, “I hate that cow!” I was so proud of them.
The fences were fine, so how did Agnes get out? Well, not all of our kids are Country kids yet. There may/might/probably will be some gate latching lessons the next time our City kids visit.
Who let the cow out? Moo, Moo, Moo, Moo!
