Most of the time I love my #LittleFarmLife. I wake up in the morning to song birds and the snuggle of dogs and cats and, occasionally, the bawling of the cows who I’ve named “What’s For Dinner.”
I get out of bed, slide into slippers, slip into a robe, grab a cup of coffee and head straight to my desk. I wake up reading the news, sorting through emails and figuring out what I have to get done that day.
And no one talks to me before 10 a.m. It’s just safer for all concerned that way. I am not a morning person. So, this past Wednesday when I looked up from my monitor to see my beloved passing by my office window I just waved. He waved back. I didn’t much pay attention to the fact that the hand he raised in salutation was holding half a flake of alfalfa. Whatever.
Didn’t even think anything of it until about 15 minutes or so later when I looked up to see What’s For Dinner trotting their bovine butts up the driveway and behind the house.
Well, I thought as I scrambled for my tall rubber barn boots, no wonder Michael was carrying alfalfa. By the time I got in my boots, grabbed a cattle stick (aka an old broom handle), tucked my cell phone in my pocket and was out the door What’s For Dinner were nowhere to be seen.
Honestly, I thought, as I followed the tracks through the mud and brush my boots gooshing in the wet earth and my robe snagging on manzanita, how do animals that large just vanish?
While I was doing a fairly good imitation of Daniel Boone minus the signature cap, my beloved was on the phone with the California Highway Patrol reporting the breakout and requesting they issue a BOLO.
By the time I traversed the entire levee with nary a sign of the Hamburger On The Hoof I realized we were going to need reinforcements so I called friends. “The cows are out,” I said. “We’re on our way,” Stefani and Doug said. God bless people who don’t ask a lot of questions and just get moving.
Michael got in his truck and headed north on our road and I got in my truck and headed south. Doug and Stefani arrived and stationed themselves at the most likely egress the Troupe Of Tri-Tip would take toward the highway.
I pulled the truck into the drive of our newest and closet neighbors and banged on their front door. I’m surprised they actually opened the door to me — a woman with wild hair filled with twigs and leaves, dressed in a muddy pink and torn bathrobe and black rubber boots carrying a broom handle babbling about loose cows.
They must have thought I was deranged but they gave me permission to come on their property to look for the Pack Of Pot Roast, who, as it turned out, weren’t there.
I moved on to the next neighbor’s place which has a large locked gate across the drive. While I couldn’t access their property via the drive there were plenty of ways the Prime Rib Ramblers could so, I had no choice but to climb the gate.
There I was, a woman well on the backside of middle age, in a tattered pink robe now hiked up to the waist straddling the locked gate which, once I was perched precariously on top was not as sturdy as it had originally looked when I decided to climb it.
And then I heard it. The low soft familiar Bawling of Brisket.
I dropped none too gracefully to the ground inside the gate managing to hang on to both the broom handle and bucket of grain and headed Davey Crockett-like into the bush. It’s really hard to be stealthy in a bathrobe and barn boots but I did my best and came to a small clearing where the Rumps of Roast were milling about.
I shook the grain bucket and dumped some on the ground to entice the Clutch Of Chuck to stay put while I called for reinforcements.
It took a bit for my beloved, Doug and Stefani to locate me because, as Doug pointed out, “Gurl you’re so dang short we can’t see you in the bushes,” and it wasn’t like I could holler or send up a flair without risking a Stampede Of Steak.
We got the Group Of Ground Round surrounded and began moving them cross country toward home. It took a while but when all was said and done What’s For Dinner were successfully returned to their pasture and no animals, property or humans were injured.
As we shut and latched the gate after them, Stefani turned to me and said, “Well?”
“Well, I guess we can now market them as free-range, grass-fed beef.”
The Link LonkFebruary 27, 2021 at 06:32PM
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Where’s the beef? | Off the Record - Chico Enterprise-Record
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