What we thought would be just a walk…

It was a beautiful evening! I had just been away all weekend so I was excited to come home, get unpacked, and spend some time with the family. We decided to take a walk and do a little exploring around the farm we live on. There was a crispness in the air…the kind you feel when you know fall is right around the corner. Basically, my heart was full!

There is this pasture with a path that we have walked by many times and Chandler has always said “we need to check that out sometime,” so today was our day! Chandler opened the gate, and in we walked. The path was so beautiful. The girls especially loved just being able to run!

The farm has LOTS of chickens and guinea hens. It was a blast just watching the girls chase those ugly birds!

(Am I allowed to say that these kids are just the cutest?!?)

Then we decided that we would go up another path in that same pasture. We were looking for this bridge that we had heard about…

I took this picture just before making our ascent up the hill. Little did we know what we would find at the top!!!

So we were just walking along, talking and having a good time when we spot Hudini tucked in some long grass. Hudini is one of 2 cows that live on the farm. When Chandler learned how to milk the cow (Lucy – who also was tucked in the grass, only we didn’t see her at first) the other month he was given a few lessons on these rather large creatures. The one he could remember was not to show fear.

But here we are with our three precious kids and we are now the sole attention of this big, black cow. He starts coming towards us and in our minds he is going to charge (thankfully, he is not a bull in case you were wondering!!!). So we muster up all the courage we can and pick up the girls and start walking confidently. The only problem was, we didn’t know where to walk.

I looked around us and there was no way we were going back down the hill. I could see a barbed-wire fence a little further up, so we made that our goal. These cows followed us the whole way, but we tried to act like we didn’t care. So one by one we tossed the kids through the the wire, I went  next and lastly Chandler.

These stupid cows were probably talking about how ridiculous we were as they laughed their heads off! I’m just thankful at that point a fence separated us!

Whew! We made it out. But now what?!?

We decided we would follow the fence line and then go out the neighbor’s driveway. So we started walking. It was a breathtaking view.

The view was quickly dimmed when we noticed that a few hills over were more cows. You’ve got to be kidding me!!! We realized at that point that we needed a new plan. We knew we were not going back the way we came, so we decided to cut through some brush, over another fence, and out to the road.

If I’m honest, we were a little shaken….okay, maybe a lot! We don’t know anything about cows!!! It’s one thing if it had just been us, but we had Selah, Miriam and Gideon with us. We kept replaying the scene over and over again in our minds.

The good thing in it all was that it gave us the opportunity to work through a stressful and potentially dangerous situation. We discussed what we could have done differently and how we individually handled each part. It was good. Really good.

I pray we never are placed in a dangerous situation here or overseas one day, but we do feel a little more prepared if something harmful comes our way! Not to mention the fact that we did receive amazing safety training during our missionary training!