By Rebecca Worthington / Full360 Columnist

“Bec.”

“Huh?”

“Cows are out.”

“God damnit,” I thought, rolling out of bed at 6:44 a.m. on Wednesday. In my sleep-drunk stupor, I stumbled over to my pile of barn clothes throwing on a pair of pants and a hoodie over my pajamas. Not bothering to brush my hair or take out my retainer, I stepped outside into the 42-degree morning. 

It doesn’t matter what you’re doing; when the cows are out, it’s go time.

I walked into the heifer shed checking to see which ones were gone. Only one remained, my mom’s ayrshire Kelso was screaming her head off trying to call the rest of her herd. I walked around the back of the barn, our dogs following me along the way. I checked the gate around back, still sturdy and closed.

How did they get out?

No one left the gate open, and it wasn’t broken. No time to think about that now, I needed to find my parents and brother. I ran back to the house and grabbed my phone and called my dad.

“Where are you?” I asked after he answered.

“We got them. We’re at Simkins.” I immediately knew it was the beef farm across the field. “We have to come back and get the trailer.”

“Okay.”

I hung up and checked the clock. 7 a.m. Good. I thought. I can go back to bed and get some sleep before I have to leave for class.

“Bec! That was just the little group, the big ones are still missing!” I heard my mom’s voice shouting to me.

I sighed.

Back outside into the cold morning I went. I walked over to my mom who had been riding around on the golf cart looking for them. “Dad says they’re at Hanusey Park,” she said. “We just have to get the trailer and get them.”

I stood for a moment considering the new information.

“I can’t believe this!” my mom shouted racing around town. She was rightfully worried; our cows were everything to us.

We learned the storm and winds Tuesday night spooked the heifers and they ran through two working fences.

“Our farm has been here in Plumstead & farmed by our family for the past 164 years. These animals are the future of our dairy herd and we put tons of blood , sweat, and tears into the care & comfort of them and to not get them home would be devastating to us and our breeding program as we have built on our genetics for over 90 years. We are very grateful to live in a community where people care about their neighbors and are always willing to pitch in & help out.”

“What do you want to do?” My mom asked.

“I want to go back to bed.”

Next thing I knew my brother flew past me on his four-wheeler like a bat out of hell. My dad soon followed in the farm truck, driving in a similar manner to my brother. He rolled down the window.

“What do you want us to do?” I asked.

“Get in my truck and go to Hanusey Park.” He said then immediately drove off.

Pulling into the parking lot of Hanusey Park, I immediately noticed something. There are no cows here. Looking around the park there was not a single sign of cows that I could see. My brother had parked his four-wheeler and was walking around the parking lot talking on his phone. My dad knocked on the bus door of a CBSD school bus driver and was talking to him.

“Do you want me to say something over the radio? That way the other drivers in the district can keep an eye out.”

“That would be very helpful, thank you.”

“Where are the police?” My mom asked my brother.

“Right behind you.”

I turned around to a Plumstead Township police car pulling up behind us. Oh. I finally realized. They’re gone.

My mom had turned the truck around and pulled up next to the police car to hear what the officer was saying.

“They were last seen here at 6:00 this morning.” The officer told us.

An hour ago! They could be anywhere by now.

“We don’t think they crossed 611 because we would’ve heard something, but we’ll be looking around this area.” The officer finished.

“Do you mind if I ride around on my four-wheeler to look for them?” my brother asked hoping not to get arrested for his manic driving.

The officer shook his head, not minding at all.

My mom and I left Hanusey Park and began driving around. We passed one of the exits of Patriots Ridge and saw a woman in her car looking to get out on the road.

“Ask her if she’s seen anything.” My mom told me.

I rolled down my window and waved my hand signaling her to put down her window. “Excuse me.” I started. “Did you happen to see any cows around here?”

“Cows?” She asked confused.

“Yeah, we had about 25 of them get loose and they were last seen at Hanusey Park.”

“Oh well, I haven’t seen any.”

“Okay, please call the police if you do.”

This continued for the next hour before I finally decided to email my professor about class that day.

“My family’s cows got out this morning and we can’t find them so ‘I might be late or absent to class.’ I typed between glancing at my phone and out the window. At the same time my mom had me post something on the community Facebook to keep an eye out for them.

To lose them would be devastating. Still, I kept a calm mind. Theres no sense in worrying about it. I thought. All we can do now is look for them.

That’s when my mom’s phone started ringing. I answered it. The person on the other side was a family friend of ours, she said they were seen at Carriage Hill six minutes ago. I looked around, we had just been driving around Carriage Hill and were now at Ferry Rd. I thanked her and called my dad.

“Someone said they were just at Carriage Hill,” I told him.

“Someone else was just saying they were in Patriots Ridge.” He told me.

My dad headed to Carriage Hill while my mom and I went to Patriots Ridge.

Driving around the development I looked at the houses on top of the hill. There were woods behind them, I could’ve sworn they were there. “Do you want me to jump out and look in the woods?”

“No, we don’t know who’s woods they are.”

For the next hour the cows ran us between and two residential neighborhoods, Patriots Ridge and Carriage Hill, with word-of-mouth sightings and postings on Facebook. Though the entire time none of the people looking for them saw them.

My dad called again. “Howie said he found tracks at B&B.”

“Go to B&B.” I said to my mom. That is a local beer and beverage store nearby.

When we arrived, we found Howie, another family friend of ours, there outside B&B Beverages.

I jumped out of the truck. “Where are they?” I asked.

“I don’t know, I just see tracks there in the grass.”

I immediately took off running following the tracks in the lawn down into the woods. Stepping over logs I followed the tracks to a stream they walked through. The stream made me lose track of them for a bit, but I quickly found them again. I kept going until I came to the stream runoff that made a small pond.

I looked up and there they were, the fugitives.

“I found them! I found them!” I started shouting.

The cows started looking up, getting scared.

“What!’ my mom shouted back.

“I gotta stop yelling or they’re gonna run away!”

I paused for a moment trying to figure out what to do. Everything I knew about cows and their behavior influenced my decisions. They were prey animals with no idea where they were, all they knew about me was I was something in the woods shouting and staring at them, herd mentality so if one got scared and ran the rest of them would. I couldn’t get them by myself if they ran. I called my mom.

“Who’s there with you?” I asked.

“Just Howie is standing here, but Nicole, Kim, the Township, and police are coming.”

“Okay, I need Howie to go on the other side of the woods and hold them on my opposite side.”

“What?”

“There’s a parking lot for some place on the other side of the woods. Tell him to go there and hold them from that side.”

While I was waiting for Howie to get where I wanted him, I got a notification on my phone from my DelVal professor, who learned why I was missing my class. “Second time I’ve heard this in my 10 years here. I wish you were the first. Not a problem.”

“Heh, only at Delval.” I laughed at the email from my professor. I could now see Howie in the parking lot from where I was standing. Nicole and Kim, some other family friends, arrived and started calling me asking what I wanted to do. I wanted to call Howie to get an idea of how things looked on his side. I had to wait a while for someone to send me his number, once I got it I called and he answered.

“What do things look like over there?” I asked.

“I can’t get down cus’ there’s a deep creek, but I don’t think they’ll try to cross it.”

“Okay, I’m going to try to get people on the left and right sides of them then. You just keep an eye on them there.”

I hung up with Howie and called Nicole. This would be a lot easier with walkie-talkies. I thought.

“Hey, what do you want to do?” Nicole asked.

“I want one person on my left and then someone on my right.”

“Okay Kim and I are coming.”

I had Kim on my left and Nicole on my right, talking to each of them on the phone. I directed them on where to go.

“Kim, can you go around my left and just get close enough to where you can see them.”

“I’m not sure how close I can get; there’s a thicket and a stream here.”

“Hmm, maybe get closer to me then go around?”

“Okay, here I can see them.”

“Good now just hold them.”

I hung up with Kim and called Nicole.

“Okay Nicole, do you see where Kim is? Can you just get on the opposite side of her.”

“Yeah.”

“Good, just try to be quiet, I don’t want them getting scared.”

Quietly Nicole made her way over to the opposite side. I kept my eyes on the cows watching for the slightest twitch in their body language that told me they were getting ready to run. Nicole’s movements made one of them perk her head up.

“Nicole, stay still for a second.” I said.

She stopped.

The cow went back to not paying attention.

“I think you’re good where you are now.” I said to Nicole.

“Alright.”

I hung up with Nicole and called my mom once more.

“We’ve got them held on all sides now, what’s happening over there?” I asked.

“Well, the township and the police are here, so now we’re just waiting on a trailer.”

“Okay do you think we can get more people on 313 in case they try to run?”

“I’ll ask.”

I hung up with my mom and went back to watching the cows.

I got a notification on my phone. ‘How many do you think there are?’ a text from Nicole.

‘At least six. Maybe more.’ I typed back.

About ten minutes later someone started yelling. Immediately I turned around to one of the police officers, I held my finger to my lips signaling him to be quiet. He started talking in a regular voice.

“I have two guys on 313 in case they get away.”

“Okay, Thank you.”

A few more minutes later a man in a fluorescent yellow baseball hat came down to where I was standing, he just stared at me for a second and started walking toward Nicole. Who is this guy? I thought. As he walked, he seemed to break every branch and stick in his path because cracking quickly filled the silence I was trying to preserve. What the hell? I looked over at the cows who must have calmed down since I found them, the noise didn’t seem to bother them. The man made his way around Nicole onto Howie’s side, just closer. I guess that was helpful, now we have someone to push.

Once again, some more time later I turned around and saw someone bringing in a trailer. I called my mom for an update on what was happening above us.

“We’re going to back the trailer in between the building and the fence. The police want to know if you want the people on the other side of the building closer.”

I looked around on my right side only Nicole, other people had filed into the woods filling the gap between me and Kim. “Yeah.” I answered. I hung up with my mom.

I watched behind me as the trailer was being backed in, then I heard it.

“Come on, cows! Go!”

Yellow hat.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Stop chasing them, we’re not ready yet!”

“Oh.”

Lucky the cows stilled. I sighed.

I noticed the trailer had stopped and more people began filling in the gaps. The corral of people I’d created started moving closer to the cows. Now it was time.

People started calling, whistling, yelling, pushing the cows like deer. They started moving, crashing through the underbrush, heading toward the back of the building.

One started to slip away from the group.

“Hey! Get that one!” I yelled at Yellow Hat.

He was able to cut her off and turn her around. She leaped over a log, rather ungracefully and made her way over to the group. Now we had them between the building and the fence. One stepped on the trailer, then the next, then soon we were shutting the door with all of them inside. There were definitely more than six.

I sighed. This time, not out of annoyance but relief. I walked over to my mom. “Where are the rest of them?”

“Dad got a second group and they’re going home.”

I ended up going with Nicole in her car following the trailer back home. “Who was that guy?” I asked her.

“I have no idea.” We both laughed, annoyed with Yellow Hat.

We got back home and as the cows stepped off the trailer, I counted 10. I checked the time on my phone.

“I missed my class.” I said to another friend of ours who had been helping.

The cows were all home, all was back to normal. I started heading inside, after all it was Wednesday, I still had two more classes to go to.

The next day, my mom thanked the community for their help: “We are happy to report that all are home safe & sound, no worse for wear, just a few cuts & scrapes from running through the woods and they have lost their pasture privileges for a couple of days.”