Hello, Neighbor

Yesterday as I was plating up dinner, I happened to look out the kitchen window to see a strange man in the spruce trees right under the window. He disappeared in the direction of the barn.

Uhhhh . . .

Luckily, A. was home. I informed him of the man wandering around our house and he went outside to see what was going on. Cubby wanted to go out, too, but I made him stay inside. Always best in an uncertain situation to not have a seven-year-old on the scene, don't you think?

Before A. found the man, I heard the man talking to something and I thought, "Oh, maybe he's trying to get his dog back." And then I heard a bell.

Ah. Cows.

Sure enough, there were two cows standing by the electric fence around the sheep pen. They were staring at the sheep. The sheep stared back. And yelled, of course.

The man was our neighbor from the trailer compound--three trailers, one clan of a varying number of related people that cycle in and out--about a mile down the road. His two dairy cows had gotten through his electric fence and decided to visit their ovine neighbors. Luckily, he found them before they ate my garden.

I've been on the other side of this situation enough to feel nothing but sympathy for the poor man chasing his livestock around the neighborhood. Though I will say that the cows seemed a lot more docile and easy to maneuver than sheep.

A. helped him catch the cows so he could put a rope halter around their necks and lead them home. Cubby and I looked out the front door to see him walking back down the road, leading his cows back home and presumably planning on reinforcing his fence.

Welcome to the north country, where a strange man crashing through your shrubbery just means that cows have gone walkabout.