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Sally's Excursion 9/22/2017 11:53:00 AM
Excerpt: Ramblings of a Mad Woman, Effervescence from the Soul Some years ago before I experienced the empty nest, the responsibility of caring for our numerous animals while my husband was away at work and the kids were at school, fell upon me. Sometimes the liability felt as though it literally fell on me. I recall a day when our milk cow broke through the fence when she decided it was time to explore the neighborhood un-chaperoned.
We raised Sally the Cow from the time she was barely a week-old calf, feeding her Calfmana from a bottle complete with its massive nursing nipple. At times the little Holstein calf became so boisterous with her instinctive nudging of the nipple that she often bowled whoever was feeding her over onto the ground in her robust enthusiasm for nourishment.
We raised the obstinate bovine from youth through adulthood. She was with calf the day she decided to take her unsupervised neighborhood stroll. I had walked out onto our front steps to shake out a sandy rug when I was startled to see Sally lumbering lazily down the driveway toward the street. She didn’t even give me a sideways glance as I called for her to come back. It had become a habit, her getting out of the pasture, and of late it had progressed to a tedious game, mainly because she loved the grain with which I normally coaxed her home. The only problem was, this day there was no grain left with which to coax her.
When I realized the cow had no intentions of cutting her excursion short, I put on my tennis shoes and prepared to chase her down. She wandered an eighth of a mile to a neighbor’s house before I finally managed to catch up with her; it had taken some time to find my tennis shoes. Besides, I had to stop along the way to cut a luscious branch from a tree with which to coax her home.
When I caught up with her, Sally would have no part of my offering of the branch with its lush, green leaves. Instead she became utterly annoyed, no pun intended, realizing I had no grain with which to bribe her. I can only imagine I must have appeared pretty silly, yelling comments to a 1,200-pound Holstein about the measure of her intelligence. I soon became impatient with her meandering and smacked the persistent cow on the rear with the branch, at which point she lowered her head in bull-charge fashion and nudged me over hard into a clump of wet grass.
Now I was angry! I picked myself up from my undignified perch on the wet ground and swiftly struck Sally a good whack with a larger branch on the top of her head when she lowered it to nudge me over again.
“Bet me!” I muttered out loud when the cow came toward me with her head still lowered. I turned and quickly began running down the street, naturally assuming Sally would be in quick pursuit. When I glanced back over my shoulder momentarily, the cow had turned and was now nonchalantly continuing on her neighborhood jaunt.
I was definitely furious now. I turned with quick strides and ran back to the cow, whose huge, hulking frame was now moving in languid abandon in the opposite direction of home with her pregnant belly swaying as she sashayed along. To obtain her attention, I smacked her sharply on the rump with another branch. This time, slightly more than a bit annoyed, the cow indeed turned to pursue me, drooling and snorting as she lumbered clumsily in my direction. I turned and sprinted swiftly toward home. I can only imagine the spectacle we must have made, me high-stepping gingerly down the street trying to stay well ahead of the stampede, with Sally the Cow charging up from behind, kicking up her heels, bellowing and snorting with the effort, her head lowered and wagging in annoyance to and fro.
Sally chased after me all the way home and into the pasture. She then stood watching me while I huffed and puffed and panted as I held onto the gate post, clearly completely out of breath.
Arrogantly, the cow threw her head into the air like the triumphant bull who had just downed the toreador. I swear I saw a mischievous glint in her eye as she snorted through her nostrils in contempt before nonchalantly proceeding to chew her cud, periodically belching loudly with a raucous, guttural rumble emitting from deep within her ample midsection. At that point, I swore I would commit murder if any more livestock were to be added to our menagerie.
But more animals were added from time to time over the years. There were beef calves, Duroc sows, numerous piglets, and a Hampshire boar and sow that had a penchant for wandering the neighborhood as well. There were countless ducks, geese, rabbits, chickens, goats, dogs, cats, and critters too numerous to mention; each and every one of them holding their own chapter to add to my store of memories, memories that lovingly come back from time to time, like reruns of some old Keystone Cops episode.
