The past couple days it’s been hot. Real hot. Intensified by the fact that it is rare to find AC in Vermont (because, ironically, it “doesn’t get that hot in Vermont”). So we’ve been opening our windows at night. Which is great except, we hear things outside far louder.
Last night, at around 3am, we were woken up to the sounds of loud scrapes and crunches outside. We’ve discovered a bit of a raccoon “issue” around the property, which our pest lady, Shay, will be bringing live traps for this week. But because we have found several holes under our house that this critter has created, we assumed what we were hearing was our furry downstairs neighbor.
I slowly peeked out the window next to my side of the bed. Down below is the screened porch and the motion light had been triggered and yet I saw nothing. The sound had stopped by then, so I told Tyler that whatever it was, it was gone now.
I laid back down, which Murphy and his laws have taught us that this would be the precise time the sound would start again. He was not wrong.
So I looked out the window again.
We all know from every horror movie that this is the moment the ghost/murderer/alien/etc makes itself known. Horror movies were also not wrong. Because this was the moment a large beast emerged from the shadows.
But I kept my calm. I accessed the situation and did my best to process what I was seeing in my yard. My 3am, half asleep brain did its best to put the pieces together. Four legs, about the size of a small car, wild in the forest of Vermont. Obviously, this was one of the Moose the road signs keep telling me about.
Only, it didn’t look like a moose. At least not the Moose I saw in pictures. In fact, it looked far more like a cow. But my brain kept telling me, cows aren’t wild. Not even in Vermont. Cows have been barnyard animals I’m pretty sure since the beginning of time (don’t quote me on that). So obviously it couldn’t be a cow in my yard.
And it was not, in fact, a cow.
It was two cows.
In my yard.
Which does not have cows.
They wandered a bit. Took some nibbles from my flowers. And mozeyed off on their merry way.
Now, no one has informed me of the proper protocol for finding cows in your yard. It’s likely they escaped from a nearby farm, but having no idea which farm, we were clueless as to whether we were supposed to call around at 3 in the morning to see if anyone lost a couple cows. Is this a Vermont police matter? Is there a lost cow group on facebook?
Coming up with nothing, and deciding they were probably okay since none of the cars going by were slowing down to avoid cows in the road, we went back to sleep.
But when I woke at 5 this morning, I couldn’t get the nagging guilt out of my system that I should have done something more. I looked out all the windows and didn’t see any cows but desperately wanted to check if they were still wandering our yard so I could call some nearby farms.
But then that little voice in my head that is not actually my conscience but something far more sinister started talking to me. Most call her anxiety but I call her Bertha because then I can say “shut up Bertha” to my head. But she started talking about how big cows are. And how terrifying it would be to come around a corner to find myself face to face with a cow. And what was I going to do if I found a couple wild cows in my yard?
Obviously I was going to need back up.
I promise I waited as long as I could. I’m the only early riser of the family. So I was very polite and waited until 6 to wake Tyler up. But when I asked him if he wanted to go cow hunting with me, he said “have fun. I’m going back to sleep.” and rolled over.
So I wandered the house for awhile. Trying to get up the guts to go outside and face my bovine friends. But Bertha wouldn’t shut up. It was two against one after all! So I decided I’d give Tyler one more try. This time I was successful! And it only took a little convincing and puppy dog eyes to drag a grumbling, snarling Tyler beast out of bed.
We walked all over the yard.
There were foot prints all over. A giant cow patty near the garden. But no sign of said cows. So we decided it was either the ghosts of cows that once inhabited our land from when it was once a dairy farm, or an elaborate scheme to convince Tyler to take a morning stroll with me at 6:30 in the morning.
I do hope, though, that if these two are family pets, they found their way home. Or if they were slaughter cows, they found their way to freedom.
Later:
My neighbor contacted me this morning saying she heard through the small town social chain that someone in a town north of us had been missing two cows for the past two days. The picture he posted looked like two brown cows and mine were two brown cows so i figured obviously it was a match and I would contact him.
I messaged him that I was visited by two cows late last night (which sounds like I’m some sort of farmer Ebenezor Scrooge) and they might be his. He was all “Are they brown heifers with yellow tags 501 and 468?” And I’m all like “I’m new to this whole farm thing and all I’m certain of is they are brown cows. I’m going to need a few months before I’m doing formal cow introductions and exchanging tag numbers.” And showed him the videos and the photo.
He said it wasn’t his cows because his didn’t have collars. Which is some pretty good ring camera inspection work because I didn’t even see that they had collars until he said that and even then I had to really look close.
He did say that another “nearby” farm had two cows escape which makes me think these cows plan out these elaborate escape plans, because why else would they always be going in twos? He did say he thought the other farm found their cows but he would let them know a pair of cows were spotted.
Also, if you look up “can I compost a cow patty?” the googles give you all sorts of instructions on piling several inches of cow manure but apparently it’s not normal for someone to have just one cow patty because no one has advice for disposing of just one. Despite the fact that it is quite a large sized patty.
Also again, they apparently used my wagon full of plants waiting to be put in the garden as their supper table. Because even though they did not touch the plants themselves, the wagon is covered with bits and pieces of chewed up dandelions. I foresee many dandelions growing in my garden this year.
