Hamilton Family Roundup

Edited: 1:10 p.m. CST

Apparently this baby is destined to be a cowboy/cowgirl, which considering the family history is not really all that far fetched. For the third time since I have been pregnant I have had to chase livestock. This time it was cows. (Oh, and in case you were wondering in the four years that we have lived in our house BEFORE I got pregnant I chased livestock a total of oh.... ZERO times!!)

Anyhow, on Monday night we opened our windows because it was supposed to be in the 50's and our house is old, and it doesn't cool properly so the upstairs is always 10 degrees warmer. About 3:30 on Tuesday morning I heard the cows making quite a ruckus. For a moment, a brief moment mind you, I considered getting out of bed and seeing what the problem was.

However, since they had been known to bawl before at early hours because the self feeder was empty I decided against it, popped in my ear plugs and tried to go back to sleep. About 4:00 instead of visions of sugar plums I had visions of smacking the cows upside the head with a bucket. At that point I once again briefly, every so briefly entertained the idea of crawling out of my nice warm bed to see what the problem was.

About 4:15 they quieted down and so I drifted back into dream land. This state did not last long. At about 5:30 I heard what I thought was the dog itching his ear. It sounded like a thump, thump, thump on the floor. However, Sadie started to bark, which she normally doesn't do if it is just Jack making the noise.

I told her to quiet down assuming maybe he'd startled her. When she yipped again I decided maybe I should investigate. I looked out the one window and didn't see anything but when I looked out the second window I saw a man with a flashlight walking up our driveway to his car on the road. The first thing that went through my head was that he'd hit one of our cats, the second thing was that the horses were out again. However, it quickly dawned on me that with all of that noise I heard, it was probably the cows.

I sent Jake after him, as I am not going outside to meet a strange man at 5:30 in my condition. (Send Jake out to see if it's safe, call the police if it's not... that's my motto!!) As it turns out he was an off duty Prairie City officer who quickly informed us that there were three cows in the road.

So, Jake called them and they came running. We opened a gate to let them in and that is when we noticed that two of the fence panels were down. At this point I realized that this was not just a case of three cows jumping the fence, but instead all 15 were probably out wandering somewhere.

I went inside to call my parents, after all they are their cows and why should we have all the fun, while Jake located the others. They were across the street making a mess of the farmer's corn field. Ooops!! But, at least they were contained for the moment, and we didn't have to worry about them getting hit.

The officer waited with us while we waited on my parents and so we were chit chatting. We mentioned to him how we had also had to put some horses in about a month ago and how we were kind of amazed how many officer's knew nothing about livestock. (Assuming that he's from Prairie City, he must know SOMETHING.) To which he says, I'm a city boy. All I do is just knock on the door of the nearest farmer and then direct traffic.

I was just amazed. Miss Sonya... don't you have livestock out there in the sticks?? :-) Really though, I would think that any officer that is going to be working in a district that is even remotely in the country should have at least a basic knowledge of animals. After all, they are bound to get out at some point.

Anyhow, once my parents arrived we opened the fence and slowly herded the cows back across the road and into the pasture. Of course we only got to cross the road after the inconsiderate S.O.B. in the blue SUV swerved out past the Polk County officer (with his lights on) and almost took the nose off of one of the heffers just starting to step into traffic... but that's a story for another day.

By 6:30 we had the fence fixed and my parents were on their way home. When we got into the house I could hear my alarm going off upstairs.

"So dear, do you think we should get up now?"