Cow Tales

"To control your cow, give it a bigger pasture."
Roshi Suzuki

My dad has cows. He first invested in cows while I was living in Ukraine. I found out when one day my mom called to say that my brother convinced my dad to buy two cows at an auction for a total of $3,000. I was shocked. Immediately, I started to visualize all the things I could buy with that kind of money. My monthy stipend from Peace Corps was about $300. Spending ten times that on cows didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

By the time I moved home, my father had expanded his herd. I never got into the farm work while I lived with them so I never got the total count. But before anyone starts to assume that I just ignored the beasts, let me remind you of a day I spent in Dayton, Oregon. It was a sunny day. I was getting ready to drive to my mom's office to take her the car when I noticed about six cows standing in the front lawn. I freaked out and called her. While on the phone, I noticed that none of the cows had tags "so they must not be Daddy's," I told her. She suggested calling him anyway to see where the cows came from.

After stepping outside to take some photos, I called my dad. "There are cows on the lawn, but they can't be yours because there aren't any ear tags." The shouting on the other end could have made me cry had I not already been incredibly irritated.

Since my dad had driven to Salem, I was the only person around to get the cows back. As I got some feed and lured them back through the gate, I muttered obscenities under my breath.

When I finally thought I was done, a neighbor walked onto the road to say that a cow was in his lawn. As I had already closed the cows' gate, I locked the remaining cow in the shop area. I prayed for it to poop on my dad's tools as a sort of retribution for his leaving TWO fences open.

Cows aren't usually my gig. I still want to try milking one, but other than that, I suppose cows oughta stay out of my way.