Round Top

The town of Round Top (population 92--- it was 77 for the longest time).... is just a tiny dot on a map of Texas but twice a year (in the spring and autumn) the town blossoms with both wildflowers and antique dealers.  Tents go up, anyone with a large piece of property posts signs for RV parking, and vendors come from halfway across the state and all around the country to sell their collections.

You can buy anything at Round Top.... from old bottle caps that were found in the Louisiana swamps to vintage red telephone booths shipped over from England.  Today was such a beautiful day that my husband and I drove into Round Top to have lunch at Royer's (you have to experience Royer's Cafe, there's just no explaining it--- they have a great web site).... and then on the way back, we stopped at nearly a dozen tent and shop displays.

We looked at European antiques and primitive country furniture... vintage Christmas decorations and just-made yard art put together from salvaged materials (translation: they found discarded things at the dump and creatively pieced them together into artwork that makes you smile).  There were booths filled with antique jewelry, Native American turquoise, even arts-and-crafts and handmade items, and all kinds of food booths (translation: chili, hot dogs, barbequed beef, chili, hot dogs, barbequed pork, hot dogs, chili, barbequed beans).

This weekend was just the preliminary start of the Round Top Antiques Fair...... it really starts this week, but mostly all the tents and shops are open now and just about every dealer is set up and ready to sell. Prices can be price-y, and you really have to search through a bunch of stuff to find the treasure you're looking for, but if it can be found, Round Top will have it.  Except for public restrooms.... be prepared to use one of those portapotties...... which are not for me, thank you.  This city chick has got to draw the line somewhere, and that's the line.

Car karma. (Carma?)

Well.... where do I start......

I had a problem with my car this week, so I took it to the local repair place... I've had good faith in this particular repair shop because they've fixed my car before. (Not fixing, really, just regular maintenance.)  This time, however, the car needs a repair, not just an oil change.

I took the car in on Thursday.... they checked it out, told me what the problem was, and said if I brought it back first thing on Friday morning, they could fix it, "no problem."  They started the work before 8:00 this morning.... called me at 11:00 to tell me the car was ready.  Fine.  Except there was a problem.

When they had my car in the garage and called me, everything was fixed and working...... in the time it took for them to pull my car out of the repair shop and park it in front of the building, the "fix" wasn't fixed anymore.  The manager called me up and told me "We have a slight problem...."   Back into the garage went my car, and we just waited for them to call again.

At 2:30 this afternoon, they told me they couldn't find the problem...... they checked all of their manuals, they checked the Internet, they checked and re-checked everything they could possibly think of.  Their suggestion was that I leave the car there till the owner can look at it first thing on Monday morning.  "This is his shop... he's been doing this for years.... he can fix everything.... no problem."

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that this repair shop isn't ever open on Saturdays...... who doesn't do business on Saturdays, which is usually one of the busiest days of the week?  (Even the local animal shelter up here is closed on Saturdays. Why the heck is that?)

When I told all of the above to my husband, he got on the phone and called the car repair place we used for years in Clear Lake..... he explained the situation with my car, asked if they had suggestions, which they did. He wrote down their instructions.... called the repair place here, told them what the Clear Lake mechanic said...... and still, we haven't had a phone call yet to come pick up my car.... and they close at 5pm, which is half an hour from this very second.

So they have my car till Monday.  They promised to keep the car locked inside the garage, not out on the lot. I had told them my car has always been garaged at night, and hardly ever goes out in the rain. (I give them points for not laughing at that.)

The mechanic here, after talking to my husband about the current problem with my car, said that "This here car is going to give your wife more problems over the years.... they don't make this car anymore and parts may be hard to come by..... plus she doesn't drive it enough."

Well.... pardon me.  We're out in the hills, surrounded by cows and goats and horses and wild pigs and two-lane roads that wind around the hills and don't get you anywhere except into the next small town that rolls up its sidewalks and closes its shops at 5pm and they may not be open on Saturdays because everyone has gone hunting or fishing or some such thing..... so just where is there to go????

Orange Kitty

I didn't see the orange cat on the back porch last night.... but I did see a large raccoon having a late-night snack of Meow Mix.  Just what we don't need.... a raccoon who likes cat food.  As soon as I opened up the back door last night, the raccoon walked away from the cat food and I brought the dish into the house.  I didn't put the Meow Mix on the back porch today because I didn't want the raccoon to find that dish again if he found his way back here.

No sign of that Orange Kitty this afternoon or this evening, but just before I came upstairs, I put the front porch light on and there he was, sitting peacefully on the wicker sofa. He squinted up into the light and looked at me through the windows of the front door.

Without even thinking, I said out loud: "Well! You're back!"  Into the kitchen I went to get a bowl of Meow Mix, and I went out to the back porch and made my way towards the front porch, calling out to Orange Kitty.  He heard my voice and meowed his way down the porch to me.  When he got within three feet of where I was standing, he flopped over on his back and looked at me upside-down, giving me one tiny meow.  I guess that means I've been forgiven for our un-neighborly behavior towards him last week.

I put the food dish down on the side porch for him and came back to the house. Before I got to the back door, I could hear him crunching on the Meow Mix.  Once again, the cat karma is in balance.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad I came back!

A pasture named Desire...

The bull across the road is still bellowing.... and bellowing.  His sounds this morning are louder, sadder, more intense than yesterday.

So picture this....... the bull is Marlon Brando..... he's out there in the small fenced-in field and watching the cows strolling in the lush green grass of the adjacent pasture...... he has been calling for his soul-mate since yesterday, and today, that female is off by herself, wandering aimlessly under the pecan tree near the fence line.... she hears that bull but knows there's a fence between them.

Should the bull take a running leap over that fence?  Should he risk getting caught up in the barbed wire? He's not quite ready to slit his hind-quarters and thus mar his handsome hide.

So he stands there by the fence, his eyes never leaving his cow-prize.... he keeps bellowing.... calling..... "Stella.... Stellaaaa.... Stelllllaaaaaaa!"

Marlon Brando would be so proud.

No bull.

Today has been a very pretty day..... the weather has finally, blessedly turned into a real Spring, with no hints of another winter cold-snap waiting in the wings.  I've already washed my car in the driveway without giving a thought of covering up the outside faucet to protect it from freezing winds that may turn up in the middle of the night.

With Spring in mind, the bull that's in my neighbor's pasture has only one thing on his mind--- finding the perfect cow to soothe his soul.  I'm guessing that the neighbor doesn't want any more calves just now, because he has taken the bull and put him in a small pasture, away from the females in his herd. The bull can still see the females, but he can't get close to them.  As a result, that bull has been bellowing all day long... low and sad sounds that would break your heart if you were a cow.  To me, however, those poignant sounds are just plain annoying.

Sooner or later, that bull is going to lose patience..... he'll either jump over the fence to get to the females, or he'll just run into the fence and knock it down.  By that time, he won't be looking for the perfect cow, he'll just pick whichever cow is close to him when he gets on the other side of that fence.


The orange cat continues to come to the porch for his meals.  He's not hanging out on the porch like he did before... he just quietly goes up to the food dish and eats his meal without his usual meowing to announce his arrival.  I've put his blanket back on the porch chair where it was during the cold snaps we had, but he's not sleeping there. I guess he's still not quite trusting us.... he knows that the air-horn must still be in this house.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you missing me when I'm not on the porch?

Marking his territory...

"Orange Kitty" was on the porch this morning, just finishing up his Meow Mix when I opened up the back door.  He gave me a look, meowed quietly, and walked down the steps and onto the courtyard.  He walked very slowly, watching me (expecting an air-horn blast, maybe?) and then he stopped in front of one of the flowerbeds and sat down. He gave me one of his best and most stern meow-free looks.

I walked slowly towards the steps, talking to Orange Kitty the whole time, telling him we weren't going to make noise with that air-horn anymore, I wouldn't be chasing him away from the porch, and that he would find Meow Mix on the porch day and night, whenever he was hungry.

Well, Orange Kitty let me know just how displeased he has been with our behavior of last week.... he looked at the flowerbed, looked up at me, then backed up to a green painted sign that I have in that flowerbed, and he sprayed it, thereby marking that spot as his very own.

The funny part of this story is that the painted words on that garden sign say "Sweet Home," and that's just where his spray ended up--- right on those words.

It's going to take a good long while for Orange Kitty to trust us again.


Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you ashamed of yourself for blasting me with that air-horn?

The orange cat.

Just after we had our dinner tonight, I heard a meow on the back porch. I looked out the door and there was the orange/white stray, looking at me as I peeked out through the glass of the back door. "Okay... you win," is what I told him.

I poured some Meow Mix into one of the cat bowls. When I opened the back door, the orange cat moved away from the door, probably because he expected to get blasted with the noise from the air-horn (which we were doing last week to encourage him to stay away).  He moved to the side of the porch and looked at me.  I swear the expression on his face was priceless, as if he wanted to know why I had been so rude to him last week.

"I'm sorry if we scared you," I told him. (Yes, I talk to cats. And dogs.  Don't laugh... you'd be surprised at how much they truly understand when they've heard your words enough times.)  I put the food bowl down in the usual spot near the door and I came back into the house.  Within seconds, the orange cat was at the bowl and eating the Meow Mix.  I watched him for a minute or two and I noticed that his body was thinner than it had been when he was eating the Meow Mix on a more regular basis. (That was before we decided that if we stopped feeding him, he'd go away.)

This orange cat, for all of his sometimes-unfriendly behavior, has decided that this is where he wants to be.  As I type, he's out on the front porch, sleeping on the cushions of the wicker sofa. He has forsaken his usual sleeping spot on the back porch because it's very windy tonight and the back porch is getting all of that wind.

Sometimes the universe unfolds in ways of its own, and you just have to go with it.  This orange cat thinks we're worth another try, even after multiple air-horn blasts and a week of Meow Mix deprivation.

I didn't want another cat. I am not claiming this orange/white cat, but he has claimed all of us.  I will feed him when he's outside on our porch.  I won't try to scare him away, I will not ignore him. I have put the catch-cage back into the garage because this cat has already proven to us that he's smart enough to stay away from a catch-release cage. Our two outside cats, Gatsby and Mickey, will just have to make friends with the orange cat in their own good time.

Oh well.  One good thing...... I haven't named this orange/white stray, so I guess he's not really ours.  However, I have been calling him "Orange Kitty."  That, in itself, is a name.  Oh well.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad you have another cat?

I give up...

There is just no hope for me with this orange/white stray cat. I just flat-out plain-and-simple give up.

I went to the back door to call Gatsby to come inside for the night, and there's the orange cat, sitting on the porch and looking up at me. Just sitting there, looking as pitiful as a cat can look, not meowing, not moving, just looking at me.  I turned off the porch light, closed the door, and stood there for a minute.

Then I went up the stairs and told my husband that I just had to give that cat a bowl of Meow Mix. "He's just sitting there. Even after all the air-horn blasts, and the food bowls in the catch/release cage, after a week of ignoring him and not feeding him, that cat is still coming up on our porch."

"Will feeding the orange cat make you feel better?" my husband wanted to know.  I nodded my head.  "So go and feed him," my husband said.

Back down the stairs I went..... I put some Meow Mix into a bowl.... turned the porch light on and looked out the door. No orange cat. Just Gatsby, waiting to come inside.  I let Gatsby in, then went out to the porch and called out my usual "kitty, kitty, kitty" to the orange cat. No response. No meow. No rustling in the leaves. Not a blessed sound.  I came back inside, walked through the kitchen and through the foyer and put the front porch light on, opened the door and called out "kitty, kitty, kitty." No response there either.

I brought the cat food back into the house..... I will try again before we go to bed.  No more blasts of the air-horn for that orange cat. No more chasing that cat away from our porch.  Maybe sometimes you just have to listen to the cat-whispers of the universe and see what happens.

In my mind, I can hear my dad's voice telling me "If God is a cat, you've got it made."

I can also hear my own voice saying "If God is an orange cat, you almost blew it."

Cat karma.

I don't like what we're doing with this orange/white stray cat, but I realize we have very few choices.   We made sure that cat had food every day during the stretch of frigid weather that we went through, but our aim in that gesture was to make friends with the cat so we could get him to the shelter.

Cats are smarter than you think...... the cat happily ate the Meow Mix, but didn't exactly make friends. I'm convinced that he knew he wouldn't be a 'keeper.'  Proof of that--- the little bite on my leg and the scratches on my husband's hand.

Not being able to pick up that orange cat and put him into a cat-carrier, we resorted to using a catch/release trap which we baited with Meow Mix and Fancy Feast.  "Do I look that stupid to you?" said the orange cat as he walked around the trap and then walked off of our porch. No matter how many times I set up that release-trap, the orange cat ignored it. Not even cooked bacon would lure him into it.

Trying to keep him away from the porch, and away from our own outside cats, my husband blasted an air-horn towards the orange cat when he came up on the porch looking for cat food this week.  Cats have very sensitive ears.... and those air-horn blasts must have hurt his hearing because he ran off the porch towards the barn and propelled himself into the back of the barn without breaking stride.

It has now been nearly a week that the orange stray has licked his paws on our back porch after his meal of Meow Mix.  I feel guilty that he may be going hungry... I feel badly that we've assaulted him with loud noises, and if there's a Cat God out there in the universe, I'm certainly doomed for creating havoc in the life of this particular stray cat.

We just cannot have another male cat around this house, plain and simple. When the Cat God comes to see me at the end of my days, I will have a lot of explaining to do concerning this orange/white stray.

Air horns and apologies in the night...

We have been trying to convince the orange/white stray cat to find a new home.  He has two strikes against him now--- he has bitten me on the leg, and he has scratched the heck out of my husband's hand and wrist. As my husband now says: "No more Mr. Nice Guy. This is war."

Before this week, we had been feeding the orange cat every day because of all the cold days and frigid nights we were having in the hills here.  How can you ignore the pleading meows of a cat who's sleeping in your barn at night and hiding in the bushes during the day?  So we fed him. Our mistake. I also made sure he had a warm blanket to sleep on. My mistake.

The return on our investment?  My bitten leg, and my husband's scratched hand. Plus, our outside cat Gatsby is scared to pieces of the orange cat, and our semi-outside cat Mickey has adopted the stray as his buddy. As for the orange cat, the porch is his kingdom, the chair with his blanket is his throne, and he thinks this house is like Burger King--- he wants everything his way.

We have given up with the catch/release cage.... there is no way that cat will go near that cage, no matter how hungry he gets. We've tried that approach before with him, and it just doesn't work. As soon as he sees that cage on the porch, off he goes, but he always comes back. Our plan to take him to the shelter in that cage is not going to work.  Plan B was to put him into a cat-carrier, but that didn't work either... that's how my husband got all those scratches.

We have stopped feeding the orange/white cat. My husband has tried to scare that cat away by blasting it with the not-so-musical sounds of an air horn. (The neighbors are going to love that one.)  The orange cat didn't much like the air horn, but it hasn't kept him away from the porch.... he just runs away from the back door now every time we open it.

This afternoon, when lunch was not offered to the orange cat, he strolled across the yard, walked down the hill, crossed the road and went under the fence to the neighbor's property.  That cat walked inbetween the neighbor's cows and goats and pranced up towards their barn. Clearly, he's getting food from some other source up there.

Just a little while ago, the orange cat was on the porch. I opened the door to scare him away with the air horn, then remembered that it's nearly midnight--- not exactly a good time for an air horn blast.  So I did the next best thing...... I went out on the porch, walked over towards the bushes where the cat was hiding, and apologized for not being able to feed him anymore.  The last thing I heard was a teeny meow coming from beneath the red-buds.

Bright and sunny Monday.

Finally, the sun is out there and it's shining and warm, and the temperatures are up over 70 today. Happy day indeed.  Now, if we can just get the weather gods to keep it this way, we'll be just fine.  Looking around the property at all the trees that the tree guy trimmed up, we can really see the difference he made in the landscape.  Good job by that tree guy..... now if we call him back, I'm hoping he'll have bought himself a belt for his jeans, to make the next job go faster.  (You may remember his method:  saw off two branches, put saw down, hitch up jeans, pick up saw, saw two more branches, put saw down, hitch up jeans.... repeat, repeat, repeat.)

And if I can get the cat gods to keep that orange cat away from our porch, then we'll have more happy days. The orange cat is indeed making himself at home here...... walking around the porch in the afternoon and evening now, and coming back before midnight. I always know when he's out there because he will meow his little kitty-heart out from one end of the porch to the other.

Our two outside cats are dealing with the orange cat in their own ways.  Mickey Kitty just sits there and stares at the orange cat, waiting for it to do something. Once or twice when the orange cat first came around the house, Mickey chased him across the road. But  now he's just watching him from a distance, not bothering to chase him and not looking as if he's afraid of him either. (Mickey is a bit smaller than the orange cat.... Mickey has always been smaller than every other cat.)

Gatsby, however, who is more than twice the size of the orange cat, sits there in a corner of the porch and howls at the stray cat.  If the orange cat doesn't move himself away from the porch, Gatsby will hide under one of the chairs and continue to howl.  At the second set of howls, either me or my husband will go out to the porch and rescue Gatsby...... move the chair, pick up Gatsby, and carry him into the house.  Fearless Gatsby... he's like the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz.

We had very heavy rains the other night..... rained all night long, a good hard rain that topped off all the ponds, made big puddle-ponds on the lower parts of the fields, and created musical trickling waterfalls along the creek.  We had to stop along the path of our morning walk this morning to listen to the waterfall sounds...... so pretty..... just that little bit of water rushing down the rocks made such a significant sound.

Bluebonnet seedlings are popping up everywhere.... huge bunches of them along the side of the road and in the pastures..... the barn swallows have been building nests around the porch, there are new eggs in the bluebird boxes around the property, and new baby goats are playing in the neighbor's field.

Please, please, please..... I hope all of the above means that Spring is now going to stay here and not leave us again with another blast of Winter madness.

One un-insulated pipe...

Oh well.  And here I thought we were getting through this winter season without a problem. Think again, city girl.

This past week's cold freeze brought our temperatures from 74 degrees to 23 degrees, within a 24-hour period.  For all of the cold snaps we've had, we keep faucets dripping and heaters running in both the cottage and the barn. Preventive measures against freezing pipes.  That method worked last year, and it was working fine this year also. Until the other day.

I had gone outside after the propane truck pulled out of the driveway after a routine delivery..... the drivers tend to leave the gate open and I wanted to make sure it was cold so it wouldn't get caught by the wind. As I got near the gate, I heard a waterfall.  Such a nice sound.... except that we don't have a waterfall on our property... and that sound was coming from the barn. Not good.

Back into the house I went to get my boots on, and I headed towards the barn. The closer I got, the louder the sound of falling water. Definitely not good.   As soon as I walked into the barn, there was the waterfall...... coming from one six-foot stretch of PVC pipe that had not been insulated.  The sudden freeze of 23 degrees was probably more than that one pipe could handle, the water inside the pipe must have frozen, and a four-foot piece of that pipe was laying on the floor of the barn in the middle of the waterfall.

I had no idea what to do..... my husband was at work.... so I called our friends up the road.  They drove down the hill within minutes, and J took one look at the pipe, followed it back towards the water pump and simply turned a handle..... and like magic, the waterfall stopped and there was once again silence in the barn. When you know what to do, big problems become little teeny problems.

Nothing was wrong on the second floor of the barn.... I had visions of water-soaked flooring and furniture in the guest rooms up there..... but all the falling water was contained in the lower floor of the barn, which is just wood and dirt and a stretch of concrete.  I waited till my husband got home from work to tell him the news..... no sense in letting him know what happened when he wasn't here to do anything about it.  When I did tell him, he didn't seem concerned..... he said he knew right where that pipe was, and the fix would be an easy one. "It will take me less than an hour to fix that," he said.

Let's see.... where have I heard those words before........ Oh yes, I remember... it's coming back to me now.... Those very words usually prompt me to add a new item to the ever-growing to-do list..... and "an hour's fix" could take weeks to get to.

Since we've lived out here in the country, my vision of God has changed...... my God is dressed in denim from head to toe, wearing a tool belt around his waist that's filled with everything that He could possibly need to fix every big and little item on my to-do list...... and He would stand before me surrounded in bright light with a smile on his face and a golden halo above his head... and in the background, angels would be singing and God would ask me "What would you like me to fix now, my child?"

The tree guys...

I honestly didn't think the tree guy was going to show up today, but not only did he show up (half an hour late) but he came with a helper.  Between the two of them, they got everything done except for two small trees that can easily be done another time. (And had it not started to rain, those last two trees probably would have been done today.)

I didn't think they would be here for the entire day, but they're not exactly fast workers..... plus they kept having to stop to hitch up their jeans.  The process went something like this:  cut two branches, put down the saw, pull up the jeans.... cut another two or three branches, put down the saw, pull up the jeans..... repeat, repeat, repeat... for the entire day.  Give me a blessed break.

Note to the tree guys:  BUY A BELT to hold up your jeans!

It can't be just me....... I think every blessed slow-thinking and slow-moving handyman has been on this property at one time or another.  Do they all settle into the country?  Or does the slow pace of the country create slow workers?  (To be fair, handyman W was not slow, and always showed up on time.)

But on the bright side..... they showed up, the work is done, they carted all the branches to the brush piles, which will be very much appreciated by all the birds and small animals out there in the fields.   And wonder of wonders, I was able to cross off four items on my ever-growing "to-do" list.

Would you like ice with that?

Woke up this morning to an icicle-filled bubble.  My cousins up in NY are forever telling me that we live in our own private little bubble-world out here because the town is so small and un-city-ish.

Last night, we had rain..... lots of it. And because the temperatures were below freezing (yet again) all of that rain turned to ice. As a result, everything on our property looks like a chandelier because of the dangling icicles... the house, the cottage, the light fixtures, the trees.  Icicles on them all, and I have to admit that it looks very nice, probably because I haven't seen an icicle since we left NY in 1993.

That being said, no matter how pretty this all may look, this is not exactly the winter weather we'd like to have. Once again, the weather gods are messing with our minds.  I'm sure that all the tiny white flowers that were blooming around the pecan trees are now dead, frozen in place.  Ditto for the other plants that survived the last frigid cold snap.  I am so over (over!) trying to be a gardener out here.  Between the 100 degree blasts of heat in the summer, and these arctic cold snaps of the winter, I am no longer going to try and 'make nice' in the flowerbeds. I know I've said this all before, but I figure if I keep typing these words, they will set themselves into my brain and I won't go back on my word when the warmer weather finally gets here and stays here.

Yet another blast of winter.

As I type, the temperature is 24 degrees...... add the wind to that, and the weather wizards are telling us that it feels like 10 degrees.  And I totally believe them.  This is positively the coldest it's been out here in the hills...... and the wind is just incredible.  I am so glad the tree guy was here last week to remove that big limb that was hanging over our deck.  I was sure that a good wind could have sent it crashing down onto the deck and that would have meant another project.

The orange cat continues to come back and forth on the porch.... I've been leaving food out there for him, and I sometimes treat him to a can of Fancy Feast, which he gobbles up quickly before turning to the Meow Mix.  That cat has been walking around the porch and peering into the glass doors, and he and Sweet Pea have been watching one another. No matter how cold it gets out there, that orange cat is just not coming into this house, and I'm holding firm to that rule.  He has enough places in the barn to hide from the cold.  I've also got a warm blanket not only inside the cat crate on the porch, but another blanket on top of the crate as well......... you would think the orange cat would cuddle up into that, but he's staying far away from that crate.  Honestly, that cat must know that the crate is the first step towards the animal shelter in town.

I guess today will be another soup-making day. I've lost count of how many pots of soup I've made during the past three months.  And just the other day, when the temperature was up in the mid-70s, we enjoyed a big salad for lunch and I thought that Spring had arrived for good and this blasted cold weather was just a memory.

The grass is always greener....

....on the other side of the fence.

And so it was this morning, with one of the neighbor's cows.  Down the hill she came from her own pasture, which is filled with dark and beautifully thick green grass.  Why would a cow choose to walk away from such a lush field?

At the bottom of our hill, I saw that cow veer towards the right as she walked down from her side of the hill, and that right turn of hers got her moving in the direction of our property.  Green grass here also, plus a pond filled to the top with not only water, but half a dozen brown ducks.  Our field doesn't look as tall and as lush as the cow's own pasture, but our property is quickly filling up with bluebonnet seedlings.  I'm sure those very seedlings would have been a fine breakfast for a cow who had them all to herself.

That cow kept walking up our hill, stopping here and there along our fence line, probably wondering if her legs would allow her to jump over our fence so she could introduce herself to the ducks and get a drink from the pond. As she got closer to our driveway, the cow was looking at our pond and nibbling the grass at her feet.... then she'd take a few more steps, look at the pond, nibble some more grass.   I was tempted to go out there and drive my car down the road, hoping to get behind her and persuade her to walk back towards her own property.  As it was, the other cows in that herd were watching her from their own field, knee-deep in that dark green grass of theirs.

I decided not to take my car out of the garage... did I really want to risk getting my car damaged by a 1200-pound-cow who may not want to "move along, Missy."  I decided a few patches of cow poop on our grass wasn't equal to having to clean mud from my car and explain to my husband why there was a cow-dent in the front fender.  So I just kept an eye on that cow to make sure she didn't get too close to the house.

In the end, the cow decided to turn around and walk back to her own pasture.  It wasn't me that prompted her..... it was the insistent huffing and puffing of the bull in that herd over there, most likely yelling "Where are you going, woman?! You left these calves here with me and they're dang out of control!"  (No matter the species, the males hardly ever want to take care of the kids.)