Tales From The Country

I can’t even begin to tell you how nice it was to be home this weekend. As Rosellen, very accurately, pointed out, my roots in the city are not nearly as deep as they are in my home town/home state. It’s possible that will shift over time, but something tells me my heart will never be fully at home in the city.

But enough of the nostalgia, one of the most interesting things about my weekend was how it ended. Saturday evening was spent eating burgers, potato salad, triple chocolate chunk brownies and drinking $7 wine from plastic cups with old (and new) family friends. After everyone had left, Mom, Dad and I were dozing off when the phone rang. Growing up, the phone rarely rang past 9:15 unless there was a problem. The phone ringing at 9:45 on Saturday night proved to be no different. There was definitely a problem.

The cattle drive from Friday morning left some stragglers behind. The cows and their calves that didn’t make it down the mountain with the rest of the herd, made their way down the mountain on their own. Normally, gates are left open in connecting pastures so that the remaining cows and their kids…er…calves…can make their way home without having to walk down the highway. Sometimes too many gates are open, or the fence is easy to slip through and the traveling bovines still find their way onto the highway.

Perhaps you all can see where this is going. Unfortunately, one of the unsuspecting cows that made it onto the highway also made it into the path of an unsuspecting pickup. The phone call came from a neighbor who was headed home who came across the accident and was trying to figure out who the cow belonged to. The poor girl needed to be identified, moved from the road and any other loose stock had to be secured in someplace where they wouldn’t meet the same fate. Mom and I went with my Dad, partly to be there in case he needed any help, and partly because we figured it would be more eventful than sitting at home.

Roadkill is a common site in my homestate. Making our way home, Jenn, Phil and I all commented, at separate legs of the trip, the amount of little white tufts on the road. The rabbits have not had a good month. Deer on two separate occasions have ran into my car; whenever my Dad bought a new pickup, he would get a different, tougher grill guard to help salvage the vehicle if it were to have an unhappy encounters with the wildlife.

Thankfully, in my animal/automobile escapades, the animals lived and there was minimal damage to the car. While most people in my immediate family hit deer at least once a year (I should note this is not a reflection of poor driving, but when there are groups of deer that can number in the hundreds that like to hang out close to the highway, there’s really no avoiding the situation no matter how hard you try), grill guards and driving larger vehicles in general, leave damage to a minimal.

None of these scenarios was the case Saturday night. When a Ford F-150, driven by someone who probably had no idea there could be livestock anywhere in the vicinity of the road, is abruptly stopped by a 1200 pound animal, the pickup and the cow do not come out of the situation in good shape. The pickup’s front end was half of what it should have been, every fluid it contained running down the highway. The hood wasn’t just bent, it was rolled up. It may have just been my imagination, but I could have sworn the front of the pick up had an indentation roughly shaped like the side of a cow.

I don’t I need to elaborate what happened to the cow. Because of the time of night, and with limited resources, all that could be done was to make sure all the other cows and calves were fenced in somewhere and to move the bovine casualty off the side of the road. Mom and I watched my dad help the cow’s owner pull it off the road (with the help of a tow rope and a pickup). The whole situation was very strange, unlike anything I've previously experienced, and certianly not somoething I would ever see living in Denver. Sitting in our pickup with my Mom, hoping to lighten the mood, or at least break the silence, all I could say was “Well, that’s certainly something I didn't think I’d see this weekend.” In response, my Mom agreed and said suspected I would write about it here.

She was right. So here you have it, folks, asphalt laced hamburger. Delicious!