By Marc J. Elzenbeck
When we last left our 3,500 pound purebred Holstein flight risk, we had upgraded the 4 foot high fence she had jumped, topping and criss-crossing it with electric wire. The group that hated the 100 mile-rated Zareba Energizer’s power included Leslie Lou “Minnie” Moo, her new calf Nettie, our dogs, their boss ravens, and me. It only took once. You could hear it pulse, and a wet cedar twig would spark on it. One morning in the rain I didn’t duck quite low enough under the gate. My jacket brushed the wire and it knocked me flat to the ground. Our pasture was as secure as Jurassic Park.
As Jeff Goldblum’s chaos scientist said in the movie, “Life will out.” At least one diabolical observer had noticed the obvious: a chain on a bolt was the only entry and exit, and the bolt was too short. Now, to say that cows have tongues is like saying Arnold Schwarzenegger has biceps. They can use their studded prehensile slabs to grip, wrap around and tear up reams of Timothy hay, and after watching us unlatch the gate a hundred times or so, she used that tongue to undo the chain and bolt, to do a Cowdini and navigate roads again to the nearest bull. This time she brought Nettie with her, who was 3 or 4 months old and still nursing.
Paradise Valley is only a mile or so away as the crow flies, and Farmer George, his bull and their hundred-plus pasture acres were accommodating. It was like sending your kids to a summer camp or your highly active in-laws to Europe. (Who are in the south of France right now. The city of Nice.) As summer waxed, we agreed to share any offspring and enjoyed 3 months or so of blessed grass-growing peace. Farmer George was an old hand with cows, however, and it didn’t take him long to say something about her being an oversized raging mutant, a less-than-ideal guest who repeatedly assaulted his Dexter bull. Whose lower stature, no matter how enthusiastic, was somewhat lacking.
After begging for a little more time, we used halters and ropes to walk our misunderstood romantic prize and her jaunty calf back into a newly bolted and locked pasture. Cowzilla was pregnant, so we indulged her accordingly. She ate with unbelievable gusto, growing even bigger and bossier. Mental note: acromegaly, which is what Andre the Giant had, might be a thing in bovines and I should have looked that up by now. Gestation for cows can vary by breed but is surprisingly similar to humans, about 280 days for Holsteins. Which would have put her calf into at least February, so when Christmas Break came up we left 1200 pounds of hay with a trusted young ranch hand and took the kids east to more sensible relatives.
On the night of December 21st a swirling, huge, light-flickering rain and storm system splashed all over the Olympic and Cascade ranges. Coming up on midnight, we were with our cousins past Issaquah near the foothills of Mount Si. We were drinking and dancing. The game was to pick the most ridiculous disco songs of all time, play them at top volume and deny middle age with emphasis on the Bee Gees, ABBA, and Rick James. At some point I noticed my phone ringing. It was our ranch hand.
I stepped out into the gale and we yelled at each other. Cowzilla had broken the whole fence down. She and Nettie came up to the bedroom where he and a Polish guest were together. She thumped her head on the outside shingles hard enough to make them come outside. The cows mooed and galloped alarm all up and down the quarter mile drive. The confused young couple followed and looked in the wind and dark to find what was wrong, finding nothing. When they had finally gave up and came back to the house, a glistening black calf they hadn’t noticed before was waiting for them on the porch.
They took her into the foyer onto the flagstone and wrapped her in towels. Nettie, who was still nursing, who was too young to get pregnant and too young to carry anything to term, had just given birth to a 28 pound preemie. We called her Solstice.
