No Bull Pig Rush

Sunday afternoon when we arrived home from church, I noticed a new member of the neighboring barnyard: a hefty Angus bull.

This was a bit worrisome for me, since, as I’d been suspicious that the farm renter had jacked up the current on the electric fences to a dangerous level, I had just that morning used a tester to measure the voltage and discovered that the fence was not shocking at all, leaving our property’s barnyard boundary permeable.

I again tested the fence and even tried to register a snap with a direct ground, but no dice. I called and left a message for the farmer that, there being no electricity in the fence, I was nervous about the bull.

The next morning when I opened our gate to pedal down our driveway and off to school, I noticed that the bull was no longer in the barnyard. Then I saw it placidly grazing in our driveway.

As I’m not very familiar with cattle, I quickly shut myself back inside our gate and called the farm renter.

“I don’t have a bull down there,” he said.

I called the landowner. She didn’t know whose it was, either, but said she’d call the farmer who grazes his herd across the road.

I bumped along down through the field on the other side of our house to the road and made my way to school, where maybe it was the stress of the bull situation or because it was Monday or maybe it’s just how I am that made me swing by the faculty lounge during my planning period to grab an ice cream sandwich from the stash left over from last week’s faculty meeting.

It was delicious.

At the afternoon’s faculty meeting, then, when ice cream treats were served, I felt ravenous again. Just one more sandwich was simply not enough, plus there was untested variety, so I had an Orangesicle, too. And then–What do you know!–after the meeting I realized I hadn’t even sampled the brand of sandwich that I’d contributed to the snack time, and so, well, I had another.

Perhaps it was the pouring rain, or maybe it was the sugar in my veins; I don’t think I ever pedaled quite so vigorously all the way home, and once there I gobbled chili, pepper and tomato slices, toast, and apple chunks–and didn’t even miss the ice cream dessert M decided not to serve–and learned that the farm renter whose bull it wasn’t sent his son to pen it up until the animal’s owner retrieved it.