The Cows are Messing with Me
I love it when the cattle that graze in the open space come over by my house. I love to watch them interact and feel kind of honored when they come by. I have this pastoral fantasy of me hanging out peacefully near the cows, but the truth is that they are not comfortable with me and tend to edge away nervously when I stand on my back deck watching them. I keep hoping we will work this through together.
Now, when they meander around to my part of the open space, they have their own way of doing it. The approach from the lower right valley and work their way up the hill. It reminds me of how cats tend to develop specific paths through rooms (paths which sometimes make no sense to us) and they follow that same path every time. You know, around the wastebasket and across the front of the bookcase, then up on the chair and across the desk. (Wait, come to think of it, that's how I shop in the stores I frequent. Hmmm.) Anyway, like that, same pattern every time.
Yesterday, though, was something different. I was walking into the bedroom, looking out the window, when I saw a small herd of steer running over the hill, directly at me. I counted 34 heads of steer just cruisin' along in my direction like they had received charging orders. They stopped maybe 30 feet from the fence, all facing me in that classic bull pose. I grabbed the camera and walked outside. (I was, of course, talking on the phone at that time, so Kathy got to hear my camera shutter going while we conversed. I'm nothing if not a multi-tasker.)
They had started to assume grazing positions but when they heard me taking pictures, all the cows looked at me, clearly annoyed. Then, suddenly, they turned around and ran about 25 feet in the opposite direction. Screeching to a halt, they then started grazing with their tail ends to me. Not one of them turned around or turned sideways.
It was clear that I had just been shunned by a herd of cattle. Oh my!
I'm not sure if these guys really don't like me or if they are just shy, but I get it - no more pictures! In the mean time, I'm pretty sure they are more clever than people say, because I know what it looks like when animals mess with stupid humans, and that, my friend, was it.
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