Brittany says: "Who knew that I married a cowboy?"

If someone were to ask me, I would say that Jason and I are definitely city people. In no way have I ever considered myself or Jason the barnyard-animal-raising cowboy types. The other night though we both had a chance to try out our latent cowboy (or cowgirl skills). My Grandma got a call from a friend at about 10 o'clock at night telling her that my aunt's cows were out. Yes, my aunt has cows and chickens. My aunt and uncle were out of town so Grandma asked us if we would be willing to go help her get the cows back in. We picked up my cousin Cody and his wife Natalie on the way and we set off to go catch some cows. Yee-haw!

When we got there it was dark and the cows were definitely out. One was walking down the road and we couldn't see the other one. Luckily my grandma grew up on a farm and knew how to deal with cows and some neighbors came out to help too. (I had no idea how you catch a cow.) The neighbors pulled out their four wheelers and started trying to herd the cows back. Next thing we know two police men show up and block the roads so that no one accidentally hit one of the cows. Apparently Mapleton police officers are used to this kind of thing. So the four-wheeler guys were able to get one cow back to the house and then it was our job to herd it back into the pen. It was a lot easier than I thought. Under Grandma's direction we made a semi-circle around the cow and walked it toward the pen. Cows are kind of stupid, they just go wherever you aren't.

After that we tried to be helpful, but the neighbors and the policemen kind of took over. We waited at the house (in case the cow wondered back by itself ) for about 30 minutes while they looked for it. The next thing we know a big horse trailer pulls up to the house with the missing cow in it! This search for the missing cow had turned into a whole community effort. We had probably half the Mapleton police force there (2 cops), guys on four-wheelers, guys on foot, and a borrowed horse trailer. The last step was trying to fix the fence. While we fixed the fence our little Mapleton group started talking about the other times when cows have gotten out. I guess it is quite an event in Mapleton. Their most memorable experience was when a cow got out and wondered down to Wendy's. (Not a very smart cow.)

Unfortunately it was too dark and hurried to take pictures of our little adventure, but I took some the next day when we went to check on the cows.

These are the rogue cows.

Here is the fence that the cows mangled to get out. We ended up stringing the picket fence on top of the wire fence so that they couldn't get out again.

The fence again.

My little cowboy-in-training feeding the cows.

Wouldn't he make such a cute farmer?

Jason even fed the chickens and helped my grandma collect the eggs.

Doesn't he look like a cowboy?