A Cow's Tale

I may still have a lot to learn about living in the country, including understanding that there is a difference in the way sound travels out here. We hear so many varied sounds - the farm trucks traveling down the road, the crop dusters overhead, the train coming down the track at all hours, and of course the animals....

We constantly hear animal sounds since we have quite a menagerie all around us; frogs, crickets, roosters, birds, chickens, horses, donkeys, and goats. We don't see most of these animals but we hear them. But the dogs we hear and see. I've grown accustomed to seeing the dogs that apparently had the run of our land before we homesteaded here. They take a tour every morning and we often meet when I am also out walking.

One day as I was walking back down the lane toward our house, just before the sharp bend that turns into our yard, a little beagle rounded that bend. He was bouncing along wagging his tail, happily out for his morning stroll when he suddenly spotted me coming toward him. Well, he just circled around in a u-turn and headed back in the direction he had just come at the same steady pace.... never looked back... never changed his speed..... passed in front of our house, rounded the bend on that side of the pond, and then disappeared out of my view as he entered the lane in the tall grass.

Anyway, about the traveling sounds..... on one particular morning, in addition to the usual sounds, I heard a cow mooing. The sound seemed to be coming from right at the end of our lane. I rushed down the lane to see the cow that I just knew would be standing at the entrance to our lane..... On the lam following her escape from some neighbor's pen. Since I had been stopped twice by the goats and horses walking along the road in the mornings I knew it happened! I so wished that I had a camera with me. What a picture that would be!...... I knew that you would want to see that. ...A cow greeting me as I walked down the lane for the morning paper.... Well, I walked as fast as I could to the end of the lane.....I did not see the cow. I hurried into the road because I was sure that cow had just walked on a little father down the road.....After a couple of minutes I heard the cow again. She was indeed down the road - in her normal pen, maybe a half a mile away. Sigh...... And across the road, watching me with great interest were the dogs that regularly walk our land. When our eyes met they turned their heads to the side. They really wanted to understand me. We all need to learn to live together. Except the snakes and the mice. They need to move.

What do you think I would have done with that cow?

At least it got my heart rate up!

Hope you all have a great Expo week whether you celebrate it in your land or not.