Cowboys on wheels

I was nearly back from my walk this morning when I saw a cow jumping over the moon--er, fence. A tree fell yesterday, see, and it knocked over a piece of barbed-wire fence on the edge of the neighbor's property, so nearly two dozen cows of various sizes carefully walked down the steep hill through the dark viney woods, jumped awkwardly over the fallen fence, picked their way down into the roadside gully and over the branches of the downed tree, and then went gambolling off into the neighbor's hay meadow, where the grass is apparently greener.

I hate to knock on my neighbor's door at eight o'clock of a summer morning, but cows constitute a serious road hazard--and besides, the neighbors certainly didn't want two dozen cows trampling all over their hay. So I knocked on the door, greeted a pajama-clad neighbor, and reported the news.

I was in our garden pulling weeds in the carrot patch when the neighbor's 18-year-old boy went roaring by on his four-wheeler to ride herd on the cows. I've never seen a movie cowboy on a four-wheeler, but apparently they're the latest thing in bovine crowd control. It was a regular rodeo out there, but eventually the cows returned to their accustomed haunts.

And so did I. I'm at the point in my writing project when I'm always either thinking or writing or thinking about writing, even when I'm out walking the country roads or weeding the garden, so I appreciate any opportunity to welcome some variety into my life--and if that means enjoying a field full of gambolling cows, then all I can say is: moo.