The Hazards of Living in the Country

Driving to Grand Junction the other day I came across a huge herd of cows and their newborn calves standing in the road. Cattle drives down the highway are a fairly common sight, but this one wasn't really a "cattle drive"-- it was more of a "cattle hazard" as none of the cows were moving. The calves were all very busy playing in the barrow ditch. A man stood next to his ATV, holding the gate open as though the cows might be magnetically attracted to him and thus pass through the gate. A woman and a teenage boy rode horseback through the herd, slapping their reins across bony black hides, but the cattle parted like wheat and closed back around them again.

They must've been standing there for some time, as the lady was getting quite impatient. She thumped her elderly mount in the ribs with increasing rapidity, but the old cow horse just continued moving quietly among the Angus. The lady got wilder-- she flailed her arms! She pedaled and swung her legs! She thwacked and slapped at the cows! She shouted and flailed and wriggled! The calves continued playing, the mamas continued standing stolidly on the asphalt, chewing their cuds. (The only one who she seemed to have an effect on was me, who began giggling inappropriately for the situation!)

Flinging her arms about and kicking her legs, the lady encourage the cows, beat them, berated them, snarled at them! So violently did she spasm, I was afraid she was going to fall off her horse! But he just stood good-naturedly, as unpreturbable as the mama cows. Finally, her act reaching its crescendo, the lady had enough. As if I weren't laughing hard enough, she threw herself off her horse, and in a fury, began twisting tails and grabbing ears, kicking calves toward the pasture gate as all the mamas slowly got the picture and filed through. So infuriated was our cattle queen, that in her fit of twisting and slapping and kicking, she left her old black horse ground-tied right on the dotted yellow line down the middle of the highway. As our heroine whirled away like the proverbial dervish, her cool-blooded equine simply hung his head for a nap...blocking both lanes of traffic.

Of course, it was probably beneficial she'd forgotten her horse. Watching her gymnastics had me laughing so hard my eyes were positively blurry! When she finally remembered to stomp back to the center line and claim her drowsy mount, I'd just had time to catch my breath and wipe the tears away. Just another day in Crawford country...