Misplaced Queen Latifa

Last Saturday we lost --- well, misplaced one of our cows, Queen Latifa.  Richard spent an hour and a half searching the property, looking for her.  Frustrated, he made another check of the ponds to make sure that she wasn’t stuck in the mud.  We couldn’t figure out where she could be.  The rest of the cows were standing around eating the hay he had just put out for them.  It just wasn’t like Queenie to miss a meal.  Usually the sound of the ATV will cause them all to run happily, for the barn.
 
Just the fact that she wasn’t with the others was strange.  The cows do everything together.  If one cow is in the shade of a twiggy little tree the rest of them are all smushed into the same little spot of shade.  There may be twenty-five trees in the pasture but it seems that cows will always gather under the same tree. (Probably to gossip.)

If Queenie ran away, they would all run away because of the afore mentioned togetherness thing.  They have done this before.  They escaped to the neighboring Cow Creek ranch about nine months ago.  But the fence has since been repaired and reinforced, thus ending those neighborly visits.

We even thought about the possibility of something like a mountain lion attacking her.  After all, it hadn’t been a year since our neighbor, Shannon, had to shoot a lion that attacked and killed her little goat.  She dropped it with one shot.
But there would have been evidence of that if it had happened.  A mountain lion couldn’t eat a whole cow, no matter how hungry it was.

We decided the cow had been rustled.  There was no other explanation.  But after more discussion we realized that wasn’t probable either.  The way our property is situated, anyone coming in would be noticed.  Shannon would see any unusual activity, and she’s armed and dangerous.  (We feel comfortable knowing that she is there to protect us.)

So where was the danged cow?

Richard looked depressed.  He even said that maybe he should just get out of the cow business.  He already has one misplaced heifer.  She ran off in a fit of PMS last September or so.  We still haven’t been able to locate her.  I guess the other cows were afraid to follow her what with her bad mood and all.

 He gave up his search and came in to watch the Oklahoma Sooners play Florida for the championship.  That didn’t go well for him either.  He was glum.

Yesterday morning he went outside and there she was. Queenie the Cow had come home.  OK!  He was Rancher Richie again.  He resumed being his usual jovial self.

This morning he hollered at me from the back deck to come out and see why the cow had been missing. When I looked there was a new calf, a little bitty replica of Queen Latifa was standing right beside her mama!  Apparently Mama had been hussying around without our knowledge. 

Richard had had her inseminated earlier last year but when she didn’t have a calf when she was supposed to we knew that hadn’t worked.  We had no idea that she had taken matters of motherhood into her own hands. 
We don’t know if our wanton cow broke some moral rule of cow decency or not, but we don’t really care.  The calf is too cute!