If i had an indian name...it'd be Dances with Cows

I like to walk to the chicken houses in the cool of the evening. Sometimes, Clint goes with me, but more often than not… I go alone. Well, sometimes Maggie or Tika trots along beside me, but they get distracted by squirrels and run away.

  So, I’m by myself. Which is fine with me, I just put my ear buds in and listen to music on my iPod or podcasts about different things. I love to listen to podcasts. I dislike the ones with foul language, but that’s about my only caveat to listening to someone’s opinion. I listened to one recently about bullfighting and after hearing what actually happens to the bull before, during, and after the, ahem, “fight”, found myself decidedly Team Bull. Then, I listened to a conspiracy theory one about some guy calling a radio host and telling the host he was from the year 2063. The speaker on the podcast opined that he did NOT believe the time traveler was real because “he just didn’t seem that excited or into it”. Not the fact that time travel isn’t true, mind you, but that the MOOD of the time traveler was “off”. Just like the host, I suspect.  

  Last night, Clint was gone and I put in my earbuds and headed out to walk. I felt like listening to upbeat music, so I found Family Force 5’s “Love Addict” which is a song about the love of God. I urge you to listen to it if you can. Try NOT to dance.

  I put it on repeat and checked the chickens. It was just getting dusky and I was headed back home, the song echoing in my head, me singing along, bobbing my head ever so slightly.

   

                                         (hold up, wait a minute, put a little love in it)

I sang along, my feet hitting the gravel chicken house road in rhythm

                                         (can’t kick the habit, I’ve got to have it, I’m what they call a

                                                                     LOVE ADDICT, LOVE ADDICT)

I think about Trevor, introducing me to this song when he was a teenager, jumping up and dancing to it at church camp one year when I went as a lunch lady. How the crowd screamed and yelled and jumped up with him, dancing and bopping along, Trevor doing the “worm” up the aisle at church camp...everyone singing and clapping.

   So that’s what was running thru my head in a loop as I walked.

 (doctor, oh doctor, I’ve got an e-mer-gen-cy…it seems I’m head over heels with this

                                                    L-O-V-E)

I was halfway home, walking and singing on this road running thru the middle of my pasture. I saw movement to my right.

       I stop walking, turn my head and stare straight into the eyes of 45, the white cow that tried to kill me a couple of years ago. I made the mistake of being too close to her calf. She threw me up into a tree and wallered me and stomped my arm, leaving the most marvelous hoof print shaped bruise.

  To my HORROR…I see her new calf off to my left, on the other side of the road. 45 tosses her head at me angrily and takes a few steps toward me.

  I cannot outrun her. I cannot outrun a SNAIL, an ant, a beetle. I cannot RUN. My daughter says watching me run causes her pain to see it, awkward and loping and slow. I’m in good shape. I can walk for days and lift things and work.

                 I CANNOT run.

  There is also nothing to hide behind, in this open field on a gravel road. 45 snorts at me.

I walk a few steps, thinking I will remove myself from being between mother and  child. The calf moves WITH me. I warn the calf he is the next T-Bone and I WILL get my revenge MWA HA. I’ll swallow YOU, along with my FEAR, I warn the calf.

  I try this again. Step, step, step.

Calf moves with me.

45 is getting progressively more upset and paws the ground a little.

I have no other choice. I kneel down, never taking my eyes off of 45. I feel around, picking up 3 large pieces of gravel.

                                 (hold up, wait a minute, put a little love in it)

still plays loudly in my ears.

  The first piece of gravel whistles past her hind end. She doesn’t even notice, and takes another threatening step toward me.

     (can’t kick the habit, I’ve got to have it, I’m what they call a LOVE ADDICT, LOVE ADDICT)

  I take better aim this time and throw the rock hard toward her head, she’s coming toward me now.

                               WHACK!!!!

it hits her DEAD CENTER, right between the eyes with a hollow THWACK.

I take off trotting, this allowing me a few seconds to get out from between mother and child.

45 shakes her head, wobbles a bit. She lets out a confused MAAAA  and her calf runs to her. They sniff and check each other out and head out into the pasture.

  I stop trotting and walk the rest of the way home.

         ( I must confess, my heart is pounding in my chest, for this love’s the best)

I round the corner, headed home, people on the highway have their lights on now. It’s more dark than light.

               (HOLD UP, WAIT A MINUTE)

I give in to the music and bob my head, singing along, caring not what the people driving by may think.

(I’m glowing inside, with this light I can’t hide)

I think about Trevor and church camp and dancing with the kids. We often stopped whatever we were doing and danced. Once, the kids got me a birthday card that played music. It was “Can’t Touch This” and the rule was, if that card was opened, dancing commenced. So, I’d walk in from the chicken houses, dirty and nasty and Tara or Trevor would run and open the card.

               Now we dance! we’d shout and we WOULD and we’d boogie til the song was over.

  Their friends would come over and the shout would come NOW WE DANCE!! and we WOULD, me and my kid’s friends, laughing and dancing.

  So, when I got home I put “Love Addict” on speaker. Now we DANCE! I thought.

                                                               and I did.