Hang on just a second….. I just wanted to finish my Venti half-decaf, mocha-latte with that little dollop of whipped cream and sprinkle of cinnamon. I don’t know why I never tried this before. All those wasted years.
I am so lucky. It hasn’t rained a drop in the six days I’ve been out here. I don’t think my luck will hold though. The forecast is for rain, rain, and more rain the entire rest of the week. On a happier note my ankle is feeling much better although I have developed a bit of a cough. Probably something I picked up in the airplane.
A few days ago I took the Amtrak train from Seattle north to Mount Vernon, Washington. That was an amazing ride. Looking westward across Puget Sound the distant Olympic Range was visible through the clear dry air. To the east the serrated ridgeline of the volcanic Cascade Mountains and Mount Baker formed the horizon. Along the Sound there were numberless ducks and seabirds plus, exciting for someone who just arrived from the other side, a majestic bald eagle soaring along the shore. I was just lucky that the nice weather held on for my trip as the forecast was calling for rain.
At Mount Vernon I was met by a friend-of-a-friend who had kindly offered to let me crash in her guest house on Orcas Island – one of the San Juan Islands in the northernmost part of Puget Sound. This is someplace else I had never been and was told I would love it by absolutely everyone. Rugged coastlines, evergreen covered mountains, spectacular scenery and, of course, rain. But not so much as the San Juans are reputed to be in Washington State’s sun-belt. They are mostly downwind from the Olympic Range which puts them in the rain shadow and not far enough east to allow the rain clouds to re-saturate before they try and pass over the Cascades. All of this remained hidden to me as I arrived in the dark. Contrary to expectations the next day dawned clear, bright and cloudless affording me a travel poster grade view of Orcas and the surrounding islands. I am so lucky.
Orcas Island is one of these places where a lot of people come over for lunch and then forget that they planned to leave. As a community it is very accepting of people with eccentricities and incorporates all sorts of interesting personalities into the local social fabric. The small villages on the island blossom with people opening trendy and unique shops selling the various arts and crafts they devise while waiting in line for their “medication”. The quaint hamlets attract bed-and-breakfasts and inns which expand into resorts which attract the developers and rich people who move in driving up the price of real estate and driving out the people who made it all so quaint and attractive in the first place. Orcas Island is at or near that tipping point right now.
But not quite over the edge.
Eastsound, the island’s main “town”, you see, has its own cow. I was fortunate enough to meet April during my time on the island. April is the largest cow I have ever seen. Even though I grew up in New York City I spent a lot of time on my aunt and uncle’s farm and have done my share of cow stuff. This stuff has included feeding, herding, milking, shoveling out stalls, and – as a younger child – even riding the beasts. April who must tip the scales at a ton (910 kg for everyone else) or more seemed to be more closely related with her ancestral Aurochs than with any modern day bovine. April was cared for by my host and her friend and took significantly more tending than any cow I have been previously associated with. Twice a day she gets coddled, petted and fed sufficient food to keep a flock of sheep going for a fortnight. She has her own field right in the middle of Eastsound where her impatient bellowing-for-more continuously reminds the other residents exactly how quaint and quirky their little settlement is.
But when I was there April had a little problem. One of her hind hooves had grown too much and become infected. Taking care of this was to be one of the day’s adventures. Four of us were to ride herd and attempt to subdue the cow and then, for the actual repair work, Cowboy Bob – I kid you not – would step in and do the deed.
April is about 15 years old and thereby well past the age where she holds the slightest interest of anybody who would like to turn her into burgers. Nonetheless she is still as wily as ever as well as a died-in-the-wool, or whatever, sexist. These two problems manifested themselves in an unfailing predilection to run into the raspberries if anybody bearing a Y-chromosome approached within 100 feet (31 meters) of her field and an equally uncanny ability to recognize Cowboy Bob’s truck from two blocks away.
Thus the two intrepid women went into the field and lured April from the raspberries up to the pen using hay and cow-candy which appeared to be pelletized grain soaked in molasses. The hay was ignored and April sucked through the bucket of candy in about a minute. More was acquired and April moved herself into the pen where her head was “secured” in a stock-like device and a stout pole was inserted behind her. She was “trapped”.
At this point Cowboy Bob came over lasso in hand – no, a real honest-to-god lasso – and roped April’s dainty hoof. He wrapped the rope over the stout pole and took up the slack slowly levering April’s foot off the ground and into position for the treatment. He handed off the free end of the lasso and began work. First he grabbed the cow’s tail and handed it to me. “Here, hold this.” I held both the tail and the stout pole which was seeming less robust by the second as April began to think she no longer wanted to play this game. Bob picked up a pair of snips about the size of a bolt cutter and went to work clipping April’s hoof. April, meanwhile, got a whiff of my and Cowboy Bob’s chromosomal deficiency and started trying to drive the clippers through Cowboy Bob’s skull with her elevated foot. But this was not the Cowboy’s first day at the rodeo and he successfully trimmed the curly toe at which point everybody – except April – breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Big mistake.
April took advantage of the momentary hiatus and made her move to break free. She managed to get her head half-way out of the stocks and was working on tearing down one of the walls of the pen. She had the momentum, coincidentally enough, of a ton of beef on the hoof and the flimsy partitions of her enclosure started cracking. “Oh look.” Somebody said. “Should this be on the ground?” They held up a 6in (19cm) bolt. “There’s nothing in this hole.” Well the missing bolt explained why she thought she could get her head out. Another herd-rider was standing next to me so I said “Here, hold this.” Just like that I was off tail duty. I had been worried as my previous cow experience had taught me a little about what can happen at the back end when the front end gets agitated. I moved to the stocks and pressed as hard as I could to keep April from getting her head free. I attempted to distract her using the old trick my uncle had taught me years ago which was to pound on her head as hard as I could. Being the wimp I am and her being the size of a “Carmangia” the only damage was to my hand.
April was once again immobile but still as pissed-off as a scorpion stuck at the foot end of a sleeping bag. Cowboy Bob stepped up to administer the antibiotics. He held in his hand a syringe the size of a Super-Soaker water cannon with a needle that could have been made from supplies off the plumbing shelf at Home Depot. This was not going to be fun. The “needle” went in and April twitched. “Hang on just a second.” Said Cowboy Bob. “Almost done.” I think he was talking to the cow instead of the struggling “assistants”. Another jab and April had had enough. She lifted her head and pulled the fence posts straight out of the ground. She put it in reverse and started backing out of the chute threatening more damage. Cowboy Bob quickly undid his lasso, the stout pole popped out and managed not to decapitate any bystanders, and everybody took a giant step backwards.
April, now treated and free, limped off to hide in the raspberries.
I’m now back in Seattle where the sun is beginning to poke through the threatening clouds. The place where I am staying has no cows. It is something of an urban micro-farm though and does come equipped with chickens and micro-goats which while not as quaint and quirky as a “town cow” definitely promise to be more manageable should the need for treatment arise.