A little more than a week ago I posted about how the pool filter got busted. I had my prime suspect and I named names; Missy. I thought a little background on our ‘relationship’ would be good, especially with some other things that are coming up in ‘our’ future.
Missy came to live at our place about four or five years ago.
She is the only cow that has horns. Yes, cows can have horns. The bull who lives here does not have any horns. You’ll have to get past the preconceived notions you might have about bovine animals; I did too.
Missy does not belong to us, she belongs to our neighbor Mr. St. He runs his cows on our place in exchange for us keeping our grass down and agricultural tax exemption status in place. His benefit is that he gets to run more cows that he would if he only had his side to do that on.
We’ll call it four summers ago I had a lovely garden, until one cow in particular busted through the 2” square wire fencing and chomped down all the corn, squash and a good portion of tomatoes. How did Missy know where the seam was on that fence???? She found it, remembered it and she exploited it. The fence was repaired enough to keep her out most of the remainder of the summer.
Next summer as the hot days drew long and the only green things left around were the garden veggies, she found a new spot to break in. Mr. St got my angry call and came over with some more fence wire.
The interesting thing about Missy is that she is just smarter than the average cow. Oh, she knew I was mad at her. Particularly when I would find her in the garden and I’d scream at her, clap my hands and chase her out. So as that summer progressed she began watching me, and I her.
When the cows would be up by the house I would watch her through the window and she would look for me before she would head down to the garden. If I saw her making her move I would come outside and she would act like she was just casually grazing again and start to walk away from the house. But, as soon as I turned around to go back in she would stop and look. I had work to do inside and it was hot so I couldn’t stay out there all day. She was definitely getting the upper hand.
Last summer when the game started, L and S put up a strand of barbed wire to keep her out. That lasted all of about 5 minutes before they had to listen to me complain about how things were being eaten again. So they sacrificed their solar-powered hot wire that protects one of the back pastures and put it up around the garden. I won’t lie, I took a little joy watching her get zapped the first time she started after my veggies. One point to me.
This summer with the addition of the coop on the edge of the garden, the hot wire had to come down on one side of the garden. For the most part Missy has been leaving the garden alone. I did take it very personally when she busted the filter last week, because she’s seen me enjoy the pool nearly every night of the summer. One point Missy
After the filter was busted, she started going in over the fence on the one side with no hot wire to have a little okra salad. Another point to Missy.
I was able to get the filter part replaced and we are back to swimming again as of yesterday. Half-point to me.
There's more to this story, but that's it for today.
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