They're Everywhere ... They're Everywhere ...

Imagine this .... you have gone to bed early, as did the children. All is quiet ... all is well. Then, you roll over and THINK you hear someone "YELLING" and perhaps banging. So you wake your husband to tell him ... and you both sleepily walk out of your room, to discover that the "noise" is coming from the front door. So you stumble together to the front door ...

And when you arrive in front of it (forgetting to turn on the lights because you are not yet awake), you see a man with a BRIGHT flashlight shining through the doorglass YELLING "Sheriff's Department !!". So you of course open the door.

The door is opened after fighting with the lock that seemed to stick ... and the Sheriff starts talking "a mile a minute". So, what did he want, you ask ?? He started talking very excitedly .... "they're everywhere" ... "some are headed up the road to the north, and down the road over to the south" ... "we saw some near the pond on the next farm "... "there's about 50 head of cattle roaming all over that we counted" ... "they're everywhere" (he said THIS several times in a MOST excited voice.) ....

Well, it was not our imaginations NOR was it a crazy dream ..... this exact thing happened to DadToCherubs and I just last night .... at 3am !!

It seems the cows from this farm were out ... wayyyy out ... and more than a few of them. They were heading up Route 11 into McMinn County, and down Route 11 into Monroe County .... about 50 of them !! And since we live in the "big house" on the farm, the Sheriff assumed we were the Farm Owners. (This would be a good time to remind everyone that we are not "farmers" and have little Cow experience between us.)

So - we called the Farm Manager who did not answer (he was asleep). We called the Farm Owners - who also did not answer (because they were asleep.) We left lots of voicemails and then gave the Sheriff the numbers to keep trying ... and DadToCherubs and I set out to "ROUND UP THE CATTLE" as best we could. (Bear in mind again we are NOT, nor have we ever BEEN farmers ... we know almost nothing about cows .... but we are Yankees and with a bit of ingenuinity we can do most anything - HA HA !!)

It seems a car hit one cow and injured her pretty badly, according to the sheriff ... we did not SEE her but the Sheriff thought she headed back up into the farm early in the "game". But otherwise it was fairly easy to "herd" them back onto the farm and up the driveway - arms up and waving we walked, talking ever-so-nicely to each "lady".

Finally, the Farm Manager and the Owner came .... we had just finished herding all of the cows we could find (with the help of 2 sheriff's).

Upon inspection for "where exactly" they had gotten out, it was discovered that 2 gates to the main pastures were OPEN ... someone had deliberately opened them and had let the cows out. People can be soooo mean ... apparently there have been a few disgruntled ex-employees this summer who were suspected.

Side note: when the sheriff and I were waiting for the owner & manager to look at the gates, he started giggling. We began talking about Animal Farm (By George Orwell) .... that the cows had staged a coup d' etat ... that somewhere hidden was Major the pig who was orchestrating the whole affair ... it was very funny !!

We continued driving around and walking on foot .... looking for rogue cows until a little after 4:00am, when the Owner decided to call it a night. He was very thankful for our help, esp since he could not be reached right away - he said most people would not have cared about his cows.

So - we were back in bed at 420am ... but the giggles (about the whole situation) kept us up a bit longer.

Ahhhh ... the joys of farm life.