Future Cowboy?

And last night makes four....

Yes that's right, at one fifteen last night (or rather this morning) we once again chased livestock.

Have I mentioned to anyone that during the previous FOUR years that we have lived at this address we have not ONCE chased livestock and now since I have been pregnant we have done it four times? I have? Okay... just checking.

Last night it was cows. Lots and lots of black cows. In the dark, on a busy road. Makes for a great combination doesn't it? I awoke to hear them making a lot of noise and imagine my surprise when I looked out the window and saw a cow standing in my front yard. I believe my exact phrase was, "Holy Shit!!"

No you can no use that word, yes mommy is sorry, I'll have to do better next time.

So, at one fifteen Jake jumped out of bed and ran downstairs and I immediately called my parents. After all, they are their cows and if I have to be awake to chase them, so do they!! Of course my dad's response was, well open the gate and put them in. Gee thanks dad!!

Sorry, 2 of us 21 of them, you're going to have to get out of bed!! By the time I made it downstairs the cows were gone. I know this sounds unlikely but trust me, it's not all that hard to loose black cows in the pitch black night.

While Jake stood in the yard shining the spot light around I jumped in my jeep. He found one cow by our garage and for a minute I thought maybe I was loosing my mind and I had panicked for nothing. Did I just wake my parents up for one cow?

I drove across the street and down the lane and didn't see any more. Then I drove down towards the neighbor's house and was greeted by 20 sets of beety little eyes. These cows are not nearly as tame as the others so I wasn't entirely sure what to do. I parked across the road in an effort to sort of head them off and block anyone from flying down our road and making a cow/car sandwich.

At this point luck must have been on our side because the cows immediately turned around and started heading back towards home. (Which if you know anything about cows... NEVER happens!!) I turned around and followed in my jeep with my brights shining on them, hoping that anyone who came from the other direction would see me and slow down before they had 800 lbs of cow in their grill.

In another stroke of what I can only call pure luck they all stayed together and walked the fence row back towards our house in an orderly fashion and not ONE car came down the road while they were doing it. Once Jake realized what I was doing he quickly went to open the gate to the pasture only to discover that it was already open and that is how they escaped.

He shook a bucket of corn and then hid behind their feed bunk so they would come into the pasture. By the time my parents arrived all but one of the cows was safely back into the pasture. At this point I felt sort of bad waking them up but looking back I know if I wouldn't have called them the cows would have ended up on the highway or 3 miles away!! :-)

As it turns out, their hired man had come down to check on the cows yesterday afternoon and had apparently not gotten the gate latched properly. So when they came up last night to eat they saw an open gate and took the opportunity to explore.

Needless to say, their adventure has turned into my VERY, VERY long night!! It was around 2:00 when my parents left and close to 3:30 before I was able to fall asleep again.

Do you think maybe this boy is destined to be a cowboy?