Can you tell I'm in love? I was in the middle of paper piecing the New York Beauty blocks for Mitch's quilt when I got the machine and I thought I'd just finish them on the older machine, but once I tried one out on this baby, there was no going back. The dual feed capability with the 1/4" foot is a dream. Oh, and I'm almost finished with Mitch's quilt top--just ran out of the hand-dyed fabric I was using for the final border, so as soon as my order for PFD fabric arrives from Dharma, I'll be dying to finish that top.
Now, for the story about the cows...On Thursday night, about 11:30 p.m., I had just gotten settled into bed, all cozy and warm, when my husband called to me to get up and come there. He doesn't usually bother me once I've gone to bed because he's learned over the years that I'm not a very nice person when you disturb my sleep. I knew something unusual must be going on, so I got up and went to the kitchen. He just pointed at the back door and said, "Look out there."
Have you ever seen something that you just couldn't believe was real, even though all your reasoning powers told you it was? I looked out the window and there, on my carport, maybe 2 feet from the back door, were 6 cows. Yes, that's right, and they weren't alone. There were another 5 or 6 milling about on the driveway and in the front and back yard. For a moment, I thought maybe we were in the middle of a Chick-Fil-A commercial, but these were black angus, not holstein cows.
We have an open carport that's 20' x 30' and there are 3 vehicles parked there--a pickup truck, an suv, and a golf cart. So, you see, there's not a lot of room for a herd of cows. We were very hesitant to open the door and scare them for fear of the damage they might do trying to all run at the same time.
We knew they belonged to our neighbors across the road, so I went to the phone to let them know. Needless to say, they were pretty surprised, but they drove up on their ATV in pajamas, boots, and coats, within a few minutes of my call.
Now, a few years ago, my husband and I would have put on our boots and coats and gone out to help, but we're not as young and spry as we used to be and we knew the neighbors had a farm manager and other helpers who would join them in their roundup as soon as they could.
Everything started out okay and it looked as though the cows would just follow the ATV back home, but then they decided to take another path and ended up on the property next door to us, where there is a pasture with some other cows. Lots of mooing and shouting later, I decided to go back to bed, but my husband stayed up until about 12:30. He said they were still trying to herd those cows from next door and back across the road when he came to bed.
The next morning, we were able to survey the damage--not too bad, but it did require a cleanup of cow manure off the carport and driveway and returning the bird bath in the back yard to its upright position.
We've had some pretty interesting things in our yard over the years--wild turkey, deer, fox, coyotes, and we've even had a snake and a bobcat on the carport at different times, of course. Those are things you expect when you have woods all around, but we are still bewildered by why those cows came right up to the door as if they expected to be invited in. All in all, it was just another exciting night in the country. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
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