Near death cow gazing experiences

It was raining here this morning so Toby got to wear his bright red rain coat and his bright red pants that match and his shiny green dinosaur boots. It was a cheerful dressing day for all of us. And because I was so cheerful about the unusual smoothness of our morning routine, I joined in Toby’s excitement when we drove by our neighbors place to find the cows out in the front field.

And because I was so cheerful and slightly ahead of schedule, I gave in to his usual chants, “Toby OUT Toby OUT Toby see COWS??!?!?” and pulled over.

Yes, it was STILL raining out (any nominations for mother of the year award, here???) but we got out of the car nonetheless and walked through the tall grass to get to the fence to have a proper look at the cows. It was then that I noticed, just down the fence line, 3 cows that were only INCHES away from the fence. When you are a cow lover like my son is, this is VERY exciting.

So I walked even FURTHER through the tall grass, me in my nice work pants and Toby in his bright red raincoat, pants and shiny green boots. About 1 meter from these 3 confident cows I noticed the steam coming from their prominent nostrils. As Toby cheerfully announced, “Cows looking at YOU! Cows looking at YOU!” I corrected him.

These were not cows. These were BULLS.

There I was, knee deep in tall grass, carrying my red clad son who was bouncing around in my arms in his usual cow-gazing excitement. The cows certainly WERE looking at me. I was PROBABLY the very first red-cape-carrying Matador that has ever graced the presence of their isolated farmyard in Singhampton.

I don’t know much about bulls, but I do remember a certain video from Grade 9 Spanish class of the running of the bulls. This memory reminded me of two things :

1. I probably shouldn’t be waving my bright red son around in front of them and

2. As much as I was tempted to, I probably SHOULDN’T turn and run

It’s hard to leave cow watching at the BEST of times without a temper tantrum, so I knew I had to tread carefully to avoid causing any sudden movements of “the red cape”.

And so we calmly stood there, Toby, oblivious to my anxiety, laughing and pointing at the 3 bulls that stood snorting away at us (who still in awe of their miraculous good luck this morning). After a few minutes I convinced Toby to come back to the car and we slowly, SLOWLY moved away from the bulls and made it safely to the comforts of our car.

My kid is pretty good with his animals. But I think I’ll ask Santa for a book that clearly explains the difference between COWS and BULLS to him so we can avoid any potential rainy day carnage in the future.