November 1, 2007

Dear Parents:           

This is a story about cows.

Early one Sunday morning at Indian Mountain School I received a call from a teacher who said, “Dary,
I am sorry to bother you so early, but there are four cows in my yard. What’ll I do?” The teacher was from the old school – I am still quite fond of, if you haven’t noticed by now. He knows to call the headmaster when something is untoward, such as a quartet of heifers showing up on school property.

I looked at Laurie across the front page of the Sunday paper and said, “Laurie, that was John. There are four cows in his yard. This is great. Let’s go drive them back to Deep Lake Farm.”

Memories of the summers of my fifteenth and sixteenth years came flooding back. I worked on a farm then. Jimmy Wood raised heifers, usually about fifty of them. I was one of two farm hands. Harry Smith, nearly eighty, was the other. I remember Harry convincing me that chewing tobacco was better than brushing teeth. He always smiled when he told me, with a caramel glint to the four teeth that remained in his mouth. I got to drive the tractor, and mow the fields, and throw hay bales, and feed the chickens, and shovel mounds of manure, and tend to the heifers – the girls. I learned how to deal with ringworm and foot rot and pink eye. But my most vivid memory on this particular Sunday morning in Lakeville was of Harry, me, and Jimmy Wood’s two young children trying to turn back one cow which was determined to head to town rather than the barn so she could be treated for foot rot. By the time John and his two children, Laurie, and I herded the last heifer back into the pasture, I had relearned an important lesson about how to get a reluctant bovine to move. Alas, when faced with the opportunity to prove my worth this time, I could not recall the final detail.

It was easy moving the first four cows out of John’s yard and on to Indian Mountain Road. These four girls seemed quite happy to clop along toward their Deep Lake Farm home. John wielded a stout stick, his son Peter danced excitedly, daughter Alison tried in her most serious tone to convince the heifers to obey, and in my best Harry Smith fashion I urged on the quartet with “Kuw, bossies.  Kuw, bossies.”

The first 150 yards or so went all too smoothly. We must have presented an amusing sight for the few cars traveling Sunday morning. Four heifers, five humans, each group wary of the other – one slowly plodding down Indian Mountain Road, the other shuffling uncertainly with arms spread in an attempt to keep the captured friends on the move in the right direction. Then we reached the north end of the first neighbor’s expansive lawn. Without hesitation each heifer headed directly on to this verdant, welcoming sward. We couldn’t turn them back. It seemed to us that maybe these girls knew where they were aimed, for there was a mowed area that led behind the property into the woods. “This must lead back to their pasture,” said John.

We let the heifers march ahead on their own. One started crashing through the underbrush. We had reached a cul de sac. Now came the task of turning this small herd around and trying to steer them back to the road. We had picked up a fifth heifer that might have been late in leaving with the initial escapees and didn’t want to venture up Indian Mountain Road on her own. We had now reached an impasse. The heifers were not about to step onto the road. They much preferred the succulent lawn grazing. We needed professional help. Laurie hitched a ride with someone driving past in order to go to the farm. She came back to report that there was no one in evidence there. Then the groundskeeper from the beautiful lawn estate joined us. He knew the farmer and found him, and in just a few minutes, Mr. Desmond appeared quite embarrassed because his girls had created a scene.

He apologized and set about to collect these wandering heifers. “Come on girls,” he called. Remarkably, these adolescent cows perked up their ears, turned toward his voice and started marching in the right direction, toward home. By the time I had caught up there was one straggler that had found a small patch of lawn in front of the next house down the way. She refused to step on the road, and she refused to cross the driveway of the house. Now here is where I tried to remember what Harry Smith had taught me. I knew you twisted something to get a cow to move. This beast would  move only so far before she would stop altogether and plant her split hooves firmly in the grass. She was just not going to cross that driveway. I put my shoulder to her rump and urged her on. I slapped her behind. I twisted her ear. No good. I tried pulling her by her horns. Still nothing. The rest of the crew was no help, either. I was exasperated and fervently hoped that no one I knew had stopped to rubberneck at this circus show.

Then Mr. Desmond returned. We explained the predicament.

“Why don’t you lead it around the house to the other side of the driveway,” he suggested.

What a brilliant solution! This strategy worked. Around the house went bossy, and then we came to the blacktop of Indian Mountain Road, and she stopped. It was in watching Mr. Desmond convince this balky heifer to get a move on that I then recalled what Harry Smith used to do – grab the cow’s tail close enough to the starting point and twist with one hand and push with the other, and you get the reaction you are hoping for.

So the task was at last accomplished. The five delinquent heifers were back in their pasture, and we turned and walked the half-mile back to school. This had been a small but exciting adventure. Theactivity and the aroma and texture of live cow hide brought back wonderful boyhood memories. I knew there was a story here somewhere. I just couldn’t see how this event could be instructional for a wider audience.

The next day I told the tale to the head of the school’s learning center. I explained that I could not make a connection between this IMS cattle drive and something pertinent for parents, kids, and teachers. Wise Priscilla looked at me and offered, “ But what about solving the stubborn problem by having the cow go around the house?”

“Duh,” I said out loud. Even more obvious than twisting a cow’s tail was the need to be inventive and original in our thinking to solve the problem of the heifer that wouldn’t budge.

There are solutions to most situations. The obvious answer, the one closest at hand, is not often the best one. I believe this is essentially and especially true when dealing with children. It may not be a thwack on the rump or a twist of the tail or the pulling of an ear or yanking a horn gets that child headed in the direction you want. It may be as simple as turning around and finding a route around an obstacle rather than right through the middle of it.

We are now near Thanksgiving, the time to gather and enjoin our families to consider what benefits we have been given. I consider being a part of The Foote School community a privilege and a blessing. I hope you do too. I am only too glad to share my time and stories with you all.

Respectfully,

Dary

C. Dary Dunham
Head of School