Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Loose Cows

It was a busy day in Hooterville. I woke up to half a herd of loose cows milling about the entrance of Ku'ulei 'Aina. I called the usual farmers right away. They said thank ever so much for calling and we will get right on it. Just the usual free range cattle. Nothing new to see here. All will be well. I headed off to work.



And when I came home my driveway and parking area were littered with cow pies. There were hoof prints in the cabin side bed. A mouth full of Blue-Eyed Grass had been sampled and spit out. What the? Did they use my house as the staging area to collect their loose cows?



Five minutes later a truck pulled down my drive. Are those your cows up along the road? Cows? What cows? There are no cows here anymore. I didn't see any cows when I came home and stopped for the mail.

Holy cow pies, the damn things are still here. There is half a herd of loose cows milling about the entrance of Ku'ulei 'Aina.

I called the usual farmers again. Thank you so very much for calling. We really do appreciate you calling to let us know, but they are not my cows. I called everyone on this side that they could possibly belong to and all our cows are accounted for. Maybe they belong to GM.

There are certain peculiarities to living right next to an imaginary line. One of them being my phone book does not have the numbers of some my closest neighbors because they live in a different county which is not in my calling area and is a semi-long distance call. After much searching and calling, a neighbor over there in the Kingdom of Madison called me back and looked up GM's number in his phone book for me. That's when I got the poop that GM had rented the entire property next to us and was running cows on the land now.



What!!? He's running cows on that land? There is no fence! There is no fence! Oh my word, that loud noise I heard last night was cows next door in Bulbarella's garden. Sure enough the cows had come through the ridge top garden and left their big fat hoof prints all through the garden.

I had already called GM and was told how rude I was when I said he shouldn't be running cows on that land, there is no fence. The woman I spoke to said he has been doing this his whole life. He knows how to keep his cows in. Click. Well that is a whole other type of attitude.

Half an hour later there is a strong rustle in the ten foot tall Giant Ragweed, Artemisia trifida and the cows are stampeding back the way they had come in. I had left the loose cows milling about the entrance of Ku'ulei 'Aina. What made them be in such a rush to go home. The loose cows were immediatley followed by GM and his daughter. Which way did they go? That way. GM, there is no fence here.

There are no cows up here. Are these your cows? Yes. They are supposed to be a mile away. There are no cows up here. I put new posts and five strands of wire all the way up the mountain. The cows are a mile away from here. I saw a car parked at the turn out and people have come back here and cut my fence. If I ever see anybody parked there again.... The man had a gun. There are no cows up here. Now I got to go. I have a mile to walk and back before dark. The daughter completely ignored me when I said hello. She must think I'm rude.



They may weigh a ton and have really big feet, but the one good thing about loose cows is that they only really eat grass. We don't have that kind of grass. There's no good cow food on our land at all.



The loose cows even milled about in the roadside vegetable garden and all they left were deep hoof prints and fresh compost. There is no grass in my vegetable garden unless you count the sweet corn.



The loose cows didn't count my corn. One of them was licking the gravel off my driveway though. Stupid cow.



The raccoon however has been back to the roadside vegetable garden sampling the sweet corn to see if it's ready. It is two days away from being ready. I almost picked it just so I could have some of my own corn. But I couldn't do it. It wasn't ready. A contest of wills ensues.

Mercy, if it's not one varmint, it's another.

6 comments:

Lisa at Greenbow said...

There is always some excitement going on on that mountain side.

Lola said...

Roaming cows, cut fence, leaving compost. Boy, that was a day's excitement to last for awhile. Sounds worse than a couple horses running around one's place.
Hope all you get is some nice rain from Irene.

Daryl said...

Be careful about the "fresh compost". Many pastures and hay fields are sprayed with Clopyralid and other persistent herbicides. If applied to gardens, it can kill everything but grasses.

Siria said...

Yes, I agree...always some excitement going on at your place! Hope those cows stay put in the future.

lh said...

A dreaded phrase: The cows are out. Disastrous in the moment, but sometimes making for an amusing story afterwards. I hope there was no permanent damage. Love that first photo of cows pretending to be boulders. GM needs to remember Robert Frost’s “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Lois

Fairegarden said...

Good grief. They cut your wire fence? The noirve.