On the Loose in the Valley...

Usually it's midday when Gladys and I take our morning exercise. Midsummer now, the days hotter, so today I decided to take advantage of the cool morning and still air (Gladys hates a headwind). Backing into the Swiss Hall parking lot, I was surprised to see the environmentally sensitive Nancy L chatting with a woman on the Hall's back porch. Out for her walk, I thought, ever vigilant the Valley isn't filling up with trash. As I was offloading Gladys, Nancy L wandered over to share news that four of Werkhovens' calves had escaped and were out and about somewhere in the Valley. "They found one," she said, " but three are still on the loose." I looked across the field to where a band of green stood out above the pasture grass. This summer's corn crop. As I pedaled off, I told Nancy I hoped the calves weren't out there somewhere in the corn.

The corn stalks are chest high or taller and put in me in mind of our trip to the mid-west ten years ago. We had left the main drag to visit South Dakota's Badlands National Park. At one of the "scenic viewpoints" we looked out over what looked like miles and miles of humongous inverted egg cartons. Mountains of mounds and hillocks as far as the eye could see. A sightseer who shared the view with us remarked: "Helluva place to lose a cow." I'm sure those words had been spoken at that site countless times, but they were original to me, and I thought about them again, this time in the context of acres of corn and three stray calves.

On down the road a ways I was glad to see a fellow and three girls insinuating themselves between three spotted calves and the verdant cornstalks. The lost had been found and were now being chaperoned back to the calf pens. "Ah, the escapees," I told the cowherds as I pedaled by. "Just glad they weren't in the corn," the man replied.

As we pedaled by the stands of corn along the river I wondered what course of action Werkhovens might take in the future should more wayward stock wander into the corn. Aerial surveillance? A drone perhaps? It seems like those high tech whirlybirds are everywhere these days. (A couple Saturdays ago a drone was flitting back and forth over the heads of a wedding party at the event venue south of our slim acre; a wedding photographer had taken his art airborne.)

On the return leg I came upon Steve Werkhoven and the three young lady cowherds by the dairy milk house and stopped to fill in the rest of the story. There are many a head of calves at the dairy, and I was curious how they knew some of the herd were missing. One of the girls said someone had seen them running along the road and then out in Decks' hayfield. They were able to corral one but the other three escaped and disappeared. It was then I learned my thoughts had dovetailed into calf recovery. Steve said Decks had a drone, did a flyover of the area, and located the calves sauntering along the riverbank. All that remained was to herd the prodigal bovines back to the calf stalls. Werkhoven told me the dairy had seven hundred acres planted in corn. " A drone might be a good investment,"I told him. "Yeah," he replied, "They usually just hang around the calf barns though," and went on to say they'd have wandered home sometime anyway.

Maybe so, I thought, yet the dairy folks had had to leave their morning routines to retrieve them, hadn't they? Without the aerial reconnaissance they might still be searching. And that seven hundred acres is one helluva big corn maze.... Print this post