I’d already taken a shower on Tuesday afternoon. It had been a long day, and I looked forward to relaxing. Then the phone rang. It was Bruce, a good friend and neighbor. “I just got a call, our cows might be out. I’m on my way home right now.”
“Mike’s not home, but I’ll head that way.”
I quickly changed back into my grubby pants, dirty from crawling along the rows, weeding potatoes earlier in the day. As I drove the very busy highway, many thoughts passed through my mind, but “Lord, please protect the cattle and people” replayed again and again. We live next to a very busy highway, with people who drive at least 15 miles over the speed limit on their way to or from the coast. 18-wheelers thunder past and due to their weight, require extra stopping distance.
Since we don’t want calves born in the mucky and cold months of January or February, we had taken our bull and three steers to pasture at Bruce’s to keep the bull away from our cows. So, our cattle mixed with the three steers already there that Bruce and another neighbor were finishing to harvest in the fall.
With two other people I’d never met, we walked up the hill through blackberry brambles until we saw them. All seven. While waiting for further instructions, we stood, keeping the cattle trapped by a wall of blackberries.
Getting the cattle back to safety required surgical precision. We had to think like a bovine. What does a steer think? They were in unknown territory, but as herd animals, unless spooked they prefer sticking together. When other people arrived at their assignment, and they quietly and calmly moved the huddled seven towards the highway, I ran ahead. There I saw flashing emergency lights on several pickups, cars and trucks creeping cautiously towards their destinations, and at least eight other people alongside the road. Some blocked driveway entrances, others waving arms to slow down traffic.
From start to finish, it took about two hours: from the girl who first saw the cattle and got them off the highway to putting them back in a field to graze. No animal had been hit and no vehicle accidents; instead a community of neighbors and strangers worked together. We may not have been cowboys on horses, but we saw people demonstrating the cowboy ethic: Do what has to be done.