It was late afternoon on an early September day. Just a hint of fall hung in the air as I jumped my horse up into the trailer, a light fog of defeatism looming over me like the gray of the smoke from so many Western wildfires that enveloped everything for hundreds of miles. We’d just spent most of the day near the top of the mountain in a mostly vain attempt to retrieve some cows who, in apparent search of the proverbial greener grass, had ignored the suggestion of the fence that runs for several miles across the high-country ridgeline.
A good portion of my time that day was spent stretching and splicing wire, repairing the fence where the offending bovine reprobates had crashed the party. The rest of the time was spent making deep dives into the thick conifer and quaking aspen groves where the cattle preferred to hide out for most of the daylight hours. It was akin to searching for trinkets in a shipwreck in the murky waters off the coast of Spain without the aid of light or an oxygen tank. I’d just hold my breath and follow the sound of cows sprinting through the deadfall, all the while hoping to avoid a slap in the face from a wayward branch or an offending stick slicing my horse’s leg or belly. If we’d find 10 cows at a water hole, deep in the thicket, as it were, we might make it through to the other side with two or three … or none. It’s quite often a frustrating exercise in futility.
By the time I decided to load up and head back down the mountain, we’d managed to shepherd about 25 pairs back to where they belonged, with a fairly certain assumption that we’d left at least that many behind. I was also pretty sure we’d gathered a couple of cows whose calves never made it out of the trees. Those cows would surely crawl back through the fence to reunite with their babies.
For the next hour, as I snaked the trailer-load of horses down the sorry excuse of a rough mountain road, I stewed about this perpetual battle I fought with my cows every year, made worse this summer by myriad extenuating circumstances. My mind was not any more at ease as we unsaddled horses and turned them out for the night. I watched with a twinge of jealousy as the big bay gelding let loose with a groan of relief as he rolled in the dirt. He then jumped up and, with tail and head held high, gleefully loped off across the little pasture to greet his mates, as carefree as he could possibly be. He wouldn’t give a second thought about the cows on the mountain – at least not until a couple days hence, when we’d probably have to reacquaint ourselves with the very same all-day ritual again.
That evening, over a late supper and a steaming hot plate of self-pity, I lamented to my wife, never a fan of fence-jumping cows herself, about the travails of my day. I noted that I appreciated the fact that ours was a herd of cows that was never really prone to hug the lower fences and hang out all summer on the creek bottoms. It was generally a good thing that they got out and hustled the sidehills and ridgetops for their grub. But for crying out loud, the repetition of the same old fight, day after day, year after year was kind of wearing me down. My wife, a patient recipient of my frequent complaints, who grew up on a dairy farm and who put herself through college milking cows on the university farm, offered a sympathetic if slightly sarcastic consolation when she wryly stated, “At least we don’t have to milk them every day.”
I went to bed that night knowing full well that I’d surely have to carry on with the same battle I’d fought that day again and again – probably until, well, the cows come home. The next morning, however, I was able to greet the day with a fresh perspective. My conflict with my wandering cows offered up an appreciation for some parallels in life.
Every day grants us an opportunity to choose good, to make a conscious effort to do the right thing in every situation we face. Some days, for me at least, making the right decisions comes without much effort. Other days, I fail miserably at choosing good. The blessing to us all is that tomorrow will come, and we can make the effort, all over again, to do and be and choose good. Frankly, it’s kind of a blessing and a curse. Just because I chose good yesterday doesn’t guarantee I’ll do it today, or tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. It’s often far from easy, but the choice has to be made every day. The curse is that I have to make the choice every day. The blessing is I get to make the choice every day. Choose wisely.
