Front Yard, Or Pasture?

Scott rolled out of bed and looked outside. It was still dark, but he could see that the eastern sky was just starting to lighten. He groggily pulled a fresh uniform out of the closet and got dressed. He pulled his belt through the loops on his pants as he walked downstairs. He opened the door at the bottom of the curved stairway and walked past his father on his way to the kitchen.

 

“You just made it, sleepy head,” Dale commented as his second son walked by. “I was just about to call you again and put the fruit snacks away.”

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Scott nodded without offering a verbal response. He lacked the presence of mind to say much of anything until he had a cup or two of coffee in him. He picked up the last remaining package of dinosaur and shark fruit snacks off the table as he approached the coffee pot. Dale found that it could be quite difficult to get all five of the children up in time to get ready for the morning milking. Scott was by far the worst waker in the family. As an incentive for his children to get up the first time they were called, Dale would lay five packages of fruit snacks out on the kitchen table. As the children woke up, they picked a package and enjoyed the sweet treat with their coffee. If Dale had to call any of the children twice, he put the remaining packages of fruit snacks back in the cupboard and the late risers missed out.

Scott filled his porcelain mug just a little too full and topped it off with some of the cream off the top of the milk in the fridge. (The Henning family used unpasteurized unfiltered unhomogenized raw milk from their own cows which would separate into a thick cream layer on the top and skim milk on the bottom.) He carefully walked to the kitchen sink where he sipped off the top of his mug until he could successfully walk into the living room without leaving a coffee trail behind him. Once he felt he had achieved an acceptable coffee level for transportation, he looked up and paused.

It was still dark outside so it was kind of hard for him to be sure, but he thought he saw something in the back yard that didn’t quite belong. He turned off the lights over the sink and allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Sure enough, there was something in the back yard that didn’t belong. There, laying in the grass just on the other side of the chain link fence were two black and white Holstein cows. The cows didn’t seem to think anything of their current position. They were just bedding down in the back yard and chewing their cud like everything was exactly as it should be.

Scott turned the sink lights back on and made his way into the living room. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to mention the cows to his father at that point. There was a good chance that Dale already knew, but maybe he didn’t know. If Scott told his dad about the cows and Dale didn’t know about them already, there was a good chance that Scott would never get to finish his coffee. Dale might direct his children to get their boots on immediately and start the early morning roundup. 

Scott walked over the couch on the north side of the living room and looked out the tall window to the left before sitting down. Sure enough, three or four cows had made themselves comfortable on the front yard as well. He sat down and looked across the room at his father. Dale looked up from the encyclopedia he had been paging through and caught his son’s gaze.

“Yes,” he declared. “I’m aware of the bovine infestation in our yard. They’re not doing anything right now, so just finish your coffee and we’ll round them up before milking.”

Scott sighed with relief as his brothers and sister (Kerry was not involved in the morning chores at this point) smiled with satisfaction at being aware of the situation well before Scott. Scott sipped slowly at his steaming mug of coffee, knowing that he needed to wake up more quickly than usual. Dale would want to get moving a little earlier than usual because there was no telling how many of the cows had gotten out overnight and how far they might have gone. 

Scott was right. Just had he downed the last swallow of his morning jump-starter, his dad stowed the foot rest of his recliner and stood up.

“Well,” he yawned. “It’s time to get moving.”

He deposited his mug on the kitchen counter, pulled his coveralls on and slipped his size fourteens into his rubber barn boots. His children lined up behind him and followed suit. The five farm workers filed out the back door, bracing themselves against the chilly autumn air.

“Scott and Luke,” Dale addressed his second and fourth children. “Walk out between the Honda Hutch and the heifer barn and check for cows back there and look behind the Yankee barn while you’re at it. Round up whatever is there and slowly move them towards the barnyard. Try not to get them too excited.”

Scott and Luke nodded and followed their father’s orders. They found a half dozen black and whites that reluctantly rose to their feet and lumbered along the top drive before they turned downhill towards the barnyard. They joined the five or six escapees that had been ousted from inside the white picket fence and the three or four that had taken their evening on the lawn outside the fence and walked across the bottom drive. The barnyard gate had been opened by Caleb who stood guard on the drive to ensure that none of the temporary free-rangers missed their exit from the gravel driveway. 

“Okay,” Dale sighed once the gate was closed. “Bring all the cows out of the barn so we can do a head count. Once we know how many are missing, I’ll go chase them down while you kids get started milking.”

Scott and Luke walked through the bottom of the bank barn until the got to the back. They brought the whole herd out into the barnyard where Dale did his head count. Fortunately, the Henning’s herd was a fairly tame herd and tended to stay pretty close to their traditional stomping grounds and only a couple cows were still unaccounted for. Kelsey and Caleb started milking while Scott and Luke attended to the calves and heifers. It wasn’t long before Dale returned, guiding two more wayward bovines with the three-wheeler. He ushered them into the barnyard and took his place in the milking parlor.