"Hamburger... no, maybe glue!" ... are my not-so-empty threats of the near-future form of existence of any cow that I hate.

You see, what I like about living on a ranch is that each time I nearly die - and don't - I get a whole new perspective of gratefulness for life! After idiotically running for my life today, I have that euphoric feeling of happiness to be alive.

It all started when Dad and I were looking for a certain spunky heifer. We sorted and treated her and then Dad had to switch some gates to let her back to the herd. Instead of waiting, this cow goes NUTS and starts running around the pen and banging her head on the fence. Just as soon as Dad gets the gates open (i.e. her efforts for freedom were in vain since a cow with half a cow-brain could just walk out the gate) she spins around and spots me in the pen.

Her head shoots up and her neck arches and there is a prance in her step. She looks me in the eye like a fighter looking across the boxing ring. Complete with a trickle of blood running down her nose, she decides it would be polite to wipe it of on me and charges all the way across the pen straight for me. I decided that speed was the better part of valor, especially when 800 pounds of ticked-off meat is headed my direction. I spun around and started booking it across the pen. The problem was that right next to the 6 ft. tall fence, railroad ties were laid down with a nice rounded mound of ice a'top, removing all possibility of good enough footing to make it over the fence. So, running as fast as I can, I cut a tight little circle around a 20-year-old camper (ancient RV)  in the middle of the corral.  I heard a horrible ruckus behind me and as much as I wanted to throw a glance back, I skipped it.

In the fleeting moments I decided that there were two kinds of idiots. The first just run like all h--- broke loose and don't stop to see what is actually happening. The second kind takes the moment to look behind themselves so they don't look like idiots, which slows them from running as fast, and when the cow catches up with them, then they ...  well ... feel like idiots. (The opening scene of City Slickers comes to mind- but I will not claimed to have watched the movie.)

I decided I'd rather look like an idiot than feel like one. I came charging around the other side of the camper right towards the vet - whom I didn't even notice. Funny how "life-n-death situations" (or just situations of impending death) have a way of narrowing one's focus. With eyes as big as saucers, I looked across the pen. I didn't see the cow anywhere... with my adrenal heightened sense of reasoning this meant that she was still behind me and I was the only thing between her and the gate. I geared up for a second lap around the camper, being fully prepared to take as many lapse as necessary to save myself from "feeling idiotic."

My problem at this point was that I didn't want to run too slow and get caught; neither did I want to run too fast and catch back up with her on the other side of the camper. I've seen cows swap ends, and with four legs they can do it a sight faster than humans can. Since the camper is only about 20 ft. long, my original mad dash turned into a deadly blind game of tag.

Thankfully, cows aren't a quiet as Indians were, she was making a heap of noise tripping over the railroad ties. I  peaked out from the other side of the camper just in time to see her duck around the vet's pickup. I guess that once around convinced her that she had seen all the scenery that pen had to offer and she split out the gate.

With relief that she was gone, the vet looked at me and we both doubled over laughing ; me out of sheer relief to be alive, and him for watching me look idiotic and the fact that his 2500 HP pickup was not damaged. Anyway, that was all that happened, today anyway.

Now that I think about it, that cow doesn't even deserve to be glue - that's for the bad horses - I wish her fate to become dog bones... now that would be justice!