Safe in the City

With two clingy tots under foot, she needed to get out of the house. She needed something different, something that didn't involve other human beings that might pass along more germs that might lead to more sleepless nights and cranky days.

Her sweet daughters cried, "Library, library!" as she dressed them in their warm red coats and shoes.

She couldn't tell them no, but knew germ-filled books and toys were not in store for them last Thursday.

No, we'll go see the airplanes, she told them, zipping their red winter coats.

But, plans changed after just a few intersections from the house when the sunlight beamed in through the car's windows, causing one girl to fuss. "Too many red lights to go," she thought. "I can't deal with crying, today."

A quick turnaround, a tank of gas and they were off to see the cows, instead.

Cows. Sweet, innocent black and white beauties.

"I can do this," she thought as she held both of their small hands in hers, nervously leading them toward the barns for their first time without Daddy. "They're just cows."

She was impressed by how they both held her hands tightly, and listened as she coaxed them this way, and that -- all to see the calves and the Mamas eating in separate barns.

First, they watched the Mama cows using their long tongues to scoop up bits of feed. Dozens of sets of cow eyeballs peered up at them from the corners of their eyes as they passed one black and white head after another.

She laughed off a worry about the likelihood of cows being set off by the color red the way she knows bulls are known to be.

"They're just cows."

She led them the short walk back to see the calves, helping each of her daughters step carefully around mud -- and other messes -- and passed what appeared to be the smallest calves to reach the ones more eager to see people. They stopped to spend time with one that licked her white winter coat over and over, making her daughters giggle but with caution.

Another step or two ... another sweet, innocent calf, then another.

Then, suddenly: "Mooooooo! Mooooooooooo!" The sound came from behind them.

When she turned, she saw a cow barreling toward her and her babies from around a building, unrestrained and clearly upset.

She looked around and saw no one -- not one farmer or another visitor.

More mooing bellowed from the cow's belly, and her alarming sound was soon emulated by other cows that had been eating in the barn.

The Mama squeezed her daughters' hands and pulled them strongly with as little visible panic as possible between the calves small pens to put the angry Mama Cow between her and her own babies.

Each time she looked back she saw Her, and the look of protection and anger in her eyes that was so familiar. She fought tears as she pulled her daughters -- one now crying, the other throwing a tantrum over her visit with cows cut short.

Once far enough away, she looked back to see that a handful of other cows that were now loose and a few farmers herding them back into their barn.

Maybe it was the red of their little coats. Maybe they got too close to that Mama's baby. She'll never know what really happened.

Later, after she calmed down enough to drive, she eagerly returned her sweet girls to their city home, where many bad things happen, but nothing like a Mad Mama Cow.

Nothing.

She was safe in the city, once again.


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