A Farmer's Nightmare

I’m surrounded by towering cornstalks. Their bright green is just starting to fade into the gold of late summer, and they sway in the slight breeze. Their itchy leaves leave welts on my bare arms when I shove past, lost in their depths. The bright sun beats down from above making the welts sting with sweat, and my shirt plaster itself like a second skin across my body. I pause, trying desperately to get my bearings.

Rustle, rustle, rustle.

What was that? I spin in circles trying to find where the noise came from, but every time I think I find it, it comes from somewhere else.

Whuff. Rustle, rustle, rustle.

I raise my arms to protect my face and charge deeper into the corn field. I don’t know if I am running towards the noise, or away from it. Off to my right something snorts. Is it a deer, or something else? Something more sinister?

Rustle, rustle, rustle. CRASH! Mrrrrrrreeeeh. 

The sound is closer, so I run harder. Leaves whip through my hair and I stumble blindly forward. I trip in a divot of bare dirt and sprawl in the narrow gap between the rows. What was that? I think I see black figures darting at the very edge of my perception. I stand up and keep running, heedless of the itching. Heedless of the pain. All I know is the pounding panic of my heart.

I burst into an opening in the once tightly planted field, and there I see it. Shit, shit, shit! This can’t be happening! But it is. My worst nightmare.

The whole f-ing herd of cows is there, swirling together like a giant black snake ball of destruction. Trampled cornstalks peak their broken limbs up through churned mud and manure. Everywhere around me are half bitten corn cobs hanging sadly from once proud plants. If only it was a dream, but I know it isn’t as the itching and welts register. I am no longer filled with panic, nay; but with the righteous wrath of a long dead Greek hero. 

Rage brave Achilles. RAGE.

I grab a broken stalk and swing my weapon wide and the massive black vortex of devastation whirls on me. Their cries sound like those of dinosaurs, not soft moos, but angry ones reminiscent of noises that I have only heard from the Jurassic Park movies. “Mrrrrroooeeeehhhhh”

I summon what strength I have left and charge, my battle cry pierces the air with the power of a hunting hawk’s scream. “WHAT THE F DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!?! GET YOUR ASSES BACK IN THE FENCE!” The bull turns at me and bellows out a challenge, but I don’t care that he is nearly 3,000lbs and could easily kill me, this is about principle dammit. If I die this day it is with honor!

I bellow back at him and charge, “I SAID GOOOOO!” I brandish my cornstalk and swing it in one mighty stroke to fell the beast. It doesn’t work, but it does swat him across his massive black butt and breaks off in my hand. He leaps forward towards whatever twisted cattle path his herd created to escape the confines of the pasture, my prowess obviously intimidates him enough that he forgets all thoughts of challenge. The rest of the herd surges forward: a dark arrow that pours out of the field and twists towards a tiny path wending its way through a wood.

Not one to let my enemy away that easily I grab a stick and make a second charge. “Get back there! You don’t belong here! Go home! Go home!”

I chase them back through the hole they must have dug out to get out of the fence. It is most definitely not a new ditch just due to natural erosion, but was created by the herd in a devious and willful attempt to escape me and cause damage to the neighbor’s crops. 

Their reasoning? So that he would get pissed, and I don't know, destroy the rest of the fences to liberate them maybe? Take them into his cornfields so that they might not starve with their not so meager rations of grass and alfalfa hay? Call the DCFS (Department of Cow and Farm Services) on me for refusing to feed them grain? (Obviously I need an informant on the inside to discern their true motives here.) Their heinous plot very nearly went unnoticed until it was too late. 

I stab my stick down decisively into the soft earth as a barrier and stare at their retreating backs with my hands on my hips. I will reinforce this place, and they shall not escape again. No. Not this way...

I will hold the north fence until my dying breath, or until I get way too itchy from the massive quantities of seed ticks that I am now covered in and I have to go shower. Or a tree falls on it. That could happen too.

This is a fear we carry with us every day, a life with a constant battle of wills and wiles. A vigil that we must maintain. This is, a farmer's nightmare.

This is not the greatest post in the world. This is just a tribute.

Okay, so it might be the greatest tale in the world, but probably only if you can picture it properly.

I don't know what it is about me taking a vacation that motivates the cows to go above and beyond their regular shenanigans. 

"I say, old girl, did you hear that the mistress is going to Tennessee to spend a wonderful weekend in Gatlinburg with her girl friends?"

"Oh? Jolly good."

"What kind of surprise should we send her off with do you think?"

"Oh I know. Why don't we all break out through two fences and go graze in the soy bean field. That'll give her an awfully good fright. Don't you think?"

"Oh, now that's a bloody marvelous idea old girl."

"Smashing."

No. I don't know why my cows are British, but they are. Deal with it.

So, the night before I left for Gatlinburg I heard a moo echoing across the hills. I thought to myself, "That sounds like it came from the bottoms. That's impossible. It must be a trick of acoustics. The cows can't be down there." I didn't even stop to lock up the puppies. I jumped into the Mule and drove down the lower road (basically a field road), just to convince myself I was hearing things.

I probably should have given you a spoiler alert, I wasn't hearing things. I got to the bottoms and looked across the drainage ditch to see the ENTIRE herd grazing in the bean field. I'm not just talking grown cows, the old girls brought all the calves with them on their little jaunt. I saw red and spun around as fast as I could, racing back up towards the house, passing the puppies who were having BIG fun running free down the road for the first time. I was momentarily convinced that I would never see them again, but you know what? I had more important things to worry about. The cows were out. In the BEAN field. Is there a grass fed exception for when your cows are jerks and get out into the bean field? Does it count if there aren't bean pods yet? Thank God the Missouri cows are good cows. Ugh. I sped past the pups and left them for dead.

I grabbed a change of shoes and threw grain at the horses to keep them at the front of the paddock, and not at the back where I planned to open the gates and rustle the cows through like a cowboy out of a Roy Rodgers song.

What actually happened was me getting to the bottom of the hill and finding that my ATV wasn't quite all terrain enough for the job. So I took off running and screeching like a banshee at the herd of cows. Yippee ki yay my friends.

I swear that the cows think I am possessed.

Between my heavy breathing and my cursing I am sure that the neighbors probably think I am too.

Who am I to argue with results though? I was able to circle around the herd and start it moving out of the bean field and up the hill towards the hay field without having an aneurism or passing out from lack of oxygen, so I consider it a win. I'm really not a very good runner, but when the cows are out I somehow turn into a cross country athlete capable of leaping downed trees and ditches in a single bound. It's kinda like the Matrix, only with spider webs and low limbs instead of bullets.

So, I go charging up the hill after the cows waving my arms and any deadfall I can grab around in a weird move reminiscent of an ancient tribal dance that is FREAKISHLY effective at making the cows head towards home. Only instead of chanting, picture it with Tourette's. That's me when the cows are out. Then I start winging the deadfall at their heels, because I am out of shape and I can't run anymore. I am also not able to hit the broadside of a barn, let alone a heifer clocking at 35mph. It motivates them though. Those ole gals ignored my open gate and ran straight through the vinyl fencing (twice) to get back in their pasture.

But the bulls didn't.

Brisket and Dale decided to get in a headbutting contest all the way up the hill. If you haven't ever seen two 2,500lb animals attack each other it is a thing of beauty. It is incredible. It is majestic. It is EXTREMELY infuriating when you just want them to go back in the damned fences where they belong because you had other things to do tonight rather than chase them all over God's creation.

There is a certain level of mad that a usually rational human being can get to when working with livestock. At this level of mad it doesn't matter that the creatures you are working with can very easily kill you. I think it must harken back to our primal days, because you transform into a predator. Prey animals must fear you. Long story short, you become a total moron and decide that you can take a 2,500lb pissed off hunk of beef. It doesn't matter that the other 2,500lb hunk of beef is having problems standing up to your chosen target. You're an apex predator and you will be respected, dammit! Or die trying I guess. (FYI: I don't recommend doing this. In retrospect it was incredibly stupid.)

So what did I do? I took my stick and I threw it at Brisket's nose.

Yes. Brisket, the bull that was smart enough to try to drown the other bull in the lake last year. Brisket who can push Dale through a high tinsel fence. Brisket the bull who shoulders and charges into the tractor and budges it.

I hit that bull in the face with a half rotten stick from 40 feet away.

He turned and looked at me and I about peed my pants. Oh, he was mad. How dare I have the audacity to mar his money maker with a stick? I suddenly regretted my actions and tried to figure out where I could run that he couldn't get me. The Mule was too far away. The board fence wouldn't slow him down much, but maybe? Nope.  I was going to die this day, trampled to death in a hayfield. I faced my fate's narrowed and slightly hate filled brown eyes, my last thought's prepared to be: "There are worse ways to go I guess." and "I should have grabbed another stick."

Then it happened. You know those moments that can only occur in movies, like when the bad guy is crossing street and gets hit by a chance truck or a train? What happened next was like that. Only it was Dale who broadsided Brisket and shoved him right through the fence. One minute Brisket had turned to face me, and the next his eyes bulged out and Dale was churning up dirt as he rammed his big black head into Brisket's side repeatedly, half tossing him forward. Brisket forgot his hatred of me and tried to turn to face Dale, but he was well within the confines of the paddock before he broke free to lock heads again.

I stared at the hole in the fence amazed. He didn't even break new boards! It was incredible. It was magical. I was alive! I guess he owed me from the day I hit Brisket in the head with rocks and dirt clods until he stopped trying to drown him, but still. Dale is officially my favorite cow. Sorry Sweetie Pie, I love your hugs but he saved my life.

And that, ladies and gentlemen is how I got covered in seed ticks and spent my entire vacation itching.

Oh, and the puppies made it home safe and exhausted from their big adventure. God, I LOVE livestock!

This is why I can't have nice things.

That is what my legs looked like at the end of Friday's feeding.

Why?

Because the ole gals have been chatting around the hay feeder and decided that the new fangled birthing options out there sounded like they'd be great to try. Here's a hint, cows shouldn't have water births.

They should also not have births close enough to the lake that the calf could fall in and make it look like a water birth.

They should also not ATTACK people who happen by on the tractor in the nick of time, strip their shoes off (because I have lost boots by wading in lakes before), and jump in valiantly to save their newborns from hypothermia or drowning.

You'd think they'd be grateful, instead I'm nursing a few bruises and pulled muscles from running away from an angry momma. Fortunately my dad heard all my yelling (something along the lines of: "You stupid witch! I'm trying to help! I'm not the one who decided to have a baby in a f-ing lake!") and interceded with the four wheeler and a big stick. 

Everyone is fine, other than me with my lower back which was twisted in the getaway - or by face planting because I didn't put my boots back on (which really, look at my feet, you wouldn't either) and slipped on the "cow mud" by the feeders. 

Friday was not my day.

This is why I can't have nice things...

But Saturday was. Isn't he the sweetest? Really, who needed a decent pedicure anyway?

Attempted Murder, Barnyard Style.

Ah, spring. It is so welcome here in southern Illinois, especially after the never ending winter we had this past year. The freshness in the warm air stirs up all sorts of desires.

The people are gardening, birds are chirping, the grass is greening, and the bulls are trying to kill each other...  in the lake.

Yes. That’s right. It is spring. Time for Bull Match 2014!

Along with the warming temperatures comes a “warming of the blood” as it were. Usually the two ‘ole guys butt heads and kick each other. It is all in good fun until they are having a stand off in front of your tractor while you’re trying to move hay and you have somewhere to be. Their bellering across the hills blends with the sounds of the birds, cats, and stallions; a distinct song of love and lust and, well, SPRING. It is always a welcome sight, and frankly is one of those things like the return of the robins that lets me know that winter is finally gone.

But not this year. This year it got scary.

So many things fell into place Friday. I was taking the afternoon off to go hang out with Captain America, so I was home to help dad load up calves to go to a farmer friend of ours who will be feeding them out at his house. It was single handedly the WORST calf round-up of which I have ever been a part.

What usually takes us 15 minutes turned into renegade calves escaping to haunt the woods along the driveway, and two hours of trying to sort the remaining bull calves and heifers. We try to ship only the boys to feed out.

 I know that they will have a good home while they are with him, and that it was significantly less traumatic than being run through a sale barn, but it always breaks my heart a little bit when a rough black nose pops out of the trailer window to nuzzle me. Or to try and find a weak point to escape the trailer, but I’m going with nuzzle…

Anyway, we finally got the trailer loaded and I happened to hear splashing in the lake, which was odd because usually the cows don’t start swimming until it gets to be much warmer. I turned and peered down at the muddy brown water trying to figure out what was going on. I couldn’t really process what I was seeing. There were two black shapes in the water. One was barely above, and the other was… throwing itself on top of the barely swimming one? What the hell? I walked a few steps closer and realized that they were the two bulls. Brisket was shoving Dale into deeper water.

“Dad! I think your bulls are trying to kill each other.” I called over to him, amused at the time, not yet understanding that I was watching an actual death match and not just horsing around.

“Get me a gun.” He yelled as he sprinted towards the lake. I took off for the house heedless of my muck covered boots. I almost spun out on the pale hardwood floor as I slid in front of the gun closet and opened the door to find… not a single gun there. I stared at the vacuum cleaner and cursed. I didn’t even live here anymore, where had he moved his cow stopping guns? I slammed the door shut and sprinted into my parent’s bedroom, breathlessly. Surely there were still some weapons hidden in the drawer. I found a gun case and turned to run downstairs, out the door, and towards the lake as fast as my legs could carry me.

I saw dad nearing the dam now, yelling and throwing rocks at the bulls. Dale’s nose was just barely above the water as Brisket tried to repeatedly throw his bulk on top of him to hold him under the cold brown water. Brisket really was trying to kill his rival, and he was smart enough to do it. Knowing that they were well matched on land he had somehow got Dale into the water and had quickly taken advantage of the situation. I sprinted towards dad, heedless of the pain in my side, and got to him just as he managed to get Brisket out of the lake. Dale laid along the shore. His huge chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. I tossed the gun to dad who immediately removed it from its case and pointed it at Brisket; as the huge bull made a move like he was going back for seconds.

“What the hell, Lauren? You brought me an unloaded gun? What am I supposed to do? Throw it at him?” Dad glared at me over his shoulder as he reached down for a rock to throw at Brisket’s big black head.

“You’re lucky I could even find one!” I yelled back, exasperated. “I don’t even live here anymore. I don’t know where you guys keep your guns!” Yes. I managed to find the ONE unloaded gun in the whole damn house.

Brisket let out a few short bellows followed by a long one. From the body language I could tell he was taunting Dale. After dad stung him with the rock he sauntered up the hills towards the herd of cows. Three of the girls made moves towards Dale, but as Brisket strode past and talked at them they eventually turned to follow him. At that, Dale finally had the energy to heave himself up onto dry land again and dad and I started the journey back around the lake; herding him with words and well placed mud clods as he bellered and pawed out his anger.

Many times as we walked I wondered if I was going to survive. There are few places quite as dangerous as walking ten feet behind an already pissed off 1,600 lb animal and throwing things at him. There is something very scary when that said animal turns towards you pawing and rubbing his head in the dirt, snorting; and all you have is a handful of dried dirt to protect yourself with. Sometimes I question my sanity.

Eventually we got him locked up in protective custody with our remaining heifers. His calls of discontent are echoing off the barn walls now. They are not the happy sounds of spring that they once were. I can only imagine what would have went down if dad and I hadn’t been home. I don’t know what we would have assumed had happened to him (I'll take Brisket in the library with the candlestick!), but I can guarantee that we would have never thought murder. It was almost the perfect crime.

So begins the hunt for a new bull. Can’t have Brisket throwing his psychopathic intelligence to the next crop of calves.

Seriously. He’s like the bovine version of Gacy.

Barnyard Tales Chapter 7: Kinky Cows

“He strode through the gate with an aura of confidence. His taunt muscles rippled beneath his skin, making it dance with power. His jet black hair shone in the bright spring sunlight. His scent was divine; a mix of sweat and pheromones that bespoke more masculinity than words ever could. It wafted towards me on the breeze and commanded my attention. I raised my head and stared, my mouth agape, as my sisters did the same. He was by far the finest specimen of a male I, or any of us, had ever seen. He walked slowly down the hill towards us with a grace and ease that I didn’t know anyone could possess.

It had been months since any of us had seen a male old enough to arouse interest, but here was one. And oh what a one he was!

I’m not sure who started moving first. Was it me? Was it Beulah? I guess it doesn’t matter anymore really. As one we raced across the field towards the male of our dreams. We weren’t jealous, really. I knew that there would be a second place in the race for his affections, but none of that mattered. We would let him sort it out once we got there.”

Excerpt from “The Bull of My Dreams, a Memoir” by Crooked Cow

You might believe that the above quote is an overstatement, but as I watched the sexy hunk of beef that was the rent-a-bull stride off the trailer and into the pasture I swear to you that the above paragraphs describe what the cows felt. Their head’s lifted in unison. Recognition flowed through them like an electric current. As a herd they immediately ran to meet their new beau an began licking him from head to hoof.

Licking him like a freaking lollipop. I kid you not. Those old girls are kinky like that.

And the bull? I could swear he did a chin tilt, “’Sup ladies.” He was THAT confident.

Needless to say we had a bumper crop of calves that year…