A Cow Story

My friend Traci in Colorado has been entertaining her blog followers by sharing her bear stories. I have a bear mace story, but no animals were involved and it isn't very exciting, although very painful for my DH as he discovered a can of bear mace can and will explode if dropped on the garage floor. 

As a Midwesterner, we have to be content with more domesticated animals. So as not to feel left out entirely, I will share my cow story. 

See that little critter in the photo? Isn't it cute? Yah, you only THINK so. 

Once upon a time (all the best stories begin that way) when I was in the corporate world and busily marketing dairy products on behalf of American dairy farmers everywhere, we corporate types got the chance to visit a real, live dairy operation. 

We were touring the cow barn, a long structure filled with these animals, when all of a sudden one of my colleague pointed to the end of the barn and asked, "Are they allowed to just roam around the farm like that?"

Someone had apparently left the gate open and a few black and white Holsteins had escaped to frolic and play in a nearby cornfield.

The farmer's son ran off like a shot and we were left wondering what to do. Being helpful marketing-type people we thought we'd do the farmer a favor and try to do a little cow round-up. 

Five of us went outside to chase the cows. Soon, only two of us were left standing by the cornfield as three of my colleagues, all of them with the unfair advantage of growing up on a farm, had scampered as quickly as possible to climb up a roof, combine, or any tall structure nearby and available. Once safely perched ten feet off the ground they screamed to the two remaining (stupid) marketing types (I was one of them) and screamed, "Run! Its a bull!"

Remember the bull from Saturday morning cartoons when you were a kid? He was always brown, had a ring in his nose and liked to smell the flowers. No one ever told me bulls could be white and black. So as this enormous creature charged towards me I cleverly ducked behind a barbed wire fence. Did you know a barbed wire fence won't stop a bull? Well, now you do.  

Luckily the farmer's son came zipping back in the nick of time on an ATV, which I believe the cows took for their mother ship, and chased them back into the barn where they belonged. 

Ha! Now try to get one of those Colorado gals to come visit here after that scary story! :)