I named her Sweetie Pie. She was my first cow, the first one I acquired after buying my first-ever piece of rural farmland after leaving the big city and returning to my longed-for boyhood rural roots. She seemed the perfect way to embellish the return. At the time. What actually happened is the true story I’m about to tell.

So there she was, big and round, weighing maybe a ton, swishing flies with her tail. I owned my very own first fully grown cow, a Hereford with the customary reddish-brown body and white face. She immediately jumped the fence and got out. There was nobody to call, she was my cow now, I had to deal with this on my own. After some hours of angst, I discovered she had expectations about eating and by what she considered suppertime she was back in her field on her own initiative. My influence on this correction was nil.

I calmed down and started thinking rationally about my relationship with a cow and how I might parlay it into some sort of proprietary influence if not actual control over the additional cows impending in my Grand Plan, which was this:  1) get several cows and one bull; 2) let them breed as they will, naturally; 3) grow a herd; 4) sell excess cows for profit; 5) enjoy spending the profit. Within three days I had Sweetie Pie eating out of my hand. Literally. It’s not called “sweet feed” for nothing.

The grand plan soon went downhill. Sweetie Pie, pregnant when I bought her, had one girl calf. After that she and her daughter (I’ve forgotten her name) and the other would-be mama cows I bought all set a pattern: they had nothing but bull calves. That’s nice, except that 1) boy calves alone do not a growing herd make, and 2) all calves take pretty much a year to grow big enough to be worth selling.

And so it went. I was plenty re-ruralized all right, but I kept looking forward to each next calf—which invariably turned out to be another bull calf. Bad luck of the draw. My herd did not grow. The expected profits did not materialize.

Then Sweetie Pie showed her true nature.

My neighbor Dudley lived a half mile up the road. Dudley had a successfully growing—normal—herd of cows. His herd was ruled over by a magnificent bull, a massive bovine lord who commanded a full harem of unusually contented cows. They all stayed very pregnant except when they were birthing girl calves—thereby growing Dudley’s herd and his profits while I watched.

Down at my end of the half mile, I don’t know how, Sweetie Pie somehow smelled that magnificent bull—let’s call him Magno. I fully did not expect what happened next.

Sweetie Pie jumped the fence and got out onto the road. She immediately proceeded walking up the road, which she continued doing until she reached the field containing Magno. Thereupon she jumped Dudley’s fence, into his field, where she was immediately noticed by Magno, who strolled over personally to welcome her.

She stayed four days.

Then—I’m not making this up—she jumped the fence out of Dudley’s field, walked the half mile back down the road to my place…and jumped the fence back into her own field. Bovine gestation is nine months, just like people. Nine months later Sweetie Pie delivered up a new bull calf. I considered it injury over insult. This is a true story.