Wandering Cow

Friday Jonathan and I came home from a bike ride and as we were doing our cool down walk in the yard, we noticed these animal tracks. They looked like cow tracks to me, but I thought it was such a crazy idea, I had to confirm it by looking up cow tracks online, and even sending a photo to my wildlife biologist friend.

It was so hard to believe because there aren't cows very near the back way where  it came in. The cow would have had to come through the grass section between the bean and corn fields to the back of the yard, and I'm not sure how far back those go.

From the photo above, it looks like the cow came in from between the fields and went straight to the apricot trees. From there the trail disappeared.

It wasn't until Sunday afternoon that we saw anyone to ask if they knew of any cows getting loose. Sure enough, there had been several to the north of us that had gotten loose earlier that week. As far as was known to us, they'd all been found by that point, as it was several days later.

Sunday I was out in the yard and noticed more tracks in the back corner by the corn side. It's too hard to see the actual tracks in the photo above, but what I found told me that after the cow came in by the apricot trees, it went out through the corner and walked between the grove and the corn field and then probably back the way it came.

I found this track in the grassy area between the fields but couldn't find anything further out:

Later Sunday the owner of the cows had heard that we'd had one in our yard (word gets around) and stopped by to see if we'd seen anything recently. He said that he still has one cow missing!

He said that some of the cows had gotten as far away as five miles, which is pretty far for a cow. Usually, when cows get out they will find another herd. They hear them bellowing and will go to them. I believe he found several of his having spent the might with other herds.

We have no way of knowing if our visitor is the missing one. What I do know is that I sure wish I'd seen it!