Adventures with the Duchess

This morning my cousin and I made big plans to hit the gym. Even after a late night crooning over Edward in the new A&E "Sense and Sensibility" we both were up bright and early at 8:30 hitting the treadmills. After a lengthy workout we were on our way home when all of the sudden, Sarah yells, "COW!!!"

And sure enough, not 3 feet away from my car and the street was a large black cow, escapee from the adjacent field.

My mind drew ablank at this sudden situation and before I could say, "What the...?" Sarah was on her phone frantically calling 9-1-1 to report the incident.

Still not exactly knowing what to do, I just pulled over to the side of the road and put on my hazard lights. Crazily enough, we knew the owner of the cow, who we also knew was currently out of the country on vacation, so we felt we had to do something about the lost soul. Sarah jumped out of the car and walked briskly towards it trying not to spook it into running.

I couldn't leave her to face the escaped cow by herself, so after turning the car off, I followed behind, still wondering how in the world we were going to get the cow back through the gate. It was one of the funniest sites ever watching Sarah inch slowly towards the cow - grass in hand trying to tempt it in the right direction. She finally got him to turn around when I caught up with her. This was no easy task though. The cow had other ideas of where she wanted to go: Towards the wooded creek, across the street into oncoming traffic, back up the street in the opposite direction. But eventually she turned back around and started not walking, but running in the direction of the gate.

I sprinted ahead of the cow, (grateful I still had my running shoes on!) herding her towards the gate when a nice man in a truck swiftly pulled up, swung the gate open and helped Sarah and I guide her right through it and into her field. Home sweet home.

That's when we realize the gate had been tied shut with plastic bags and the cows had obviously chewed through them. So the same man who'd swung the gate open ran over to his truck and pulled out some thick wire to keep it shut until the owner could fasten it with a chain.

Right as we were getting back into the car and heaving sighs of relief, the police squad car shows up. The police man muttered something about kids thinking it was funny to leave field gates open and to make sure the owner knew to get a chain lock on the fence before he sped off. Okay, officer! Will do.

Once safely back on the road, neither of us could stop laughing at the whole situation. I would not have believed you if you had told me I would have been chasing cows later that morning.

You're welcome City of McKinney for keeping the cows off the streets. Bring on the cattle drive.