Tigerlight saves the night!

hokiefritz

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Oct 14, 2002
Messages
104
Location
Portland, OR
Long read for small flashlight payoff, but I hope you'll enjoy it.

It started around 11 PM to the allegro sounds of MooO MooO MooO, which was instantly recognized by the writer as Cookie the Heifer. This type of behavior is often an indication to greenhorn cattlemen that a female 'beef animal' is in heat, meaning ready to breed. However, a rancher that is more attuned to his cattle's individual personalities can differentiate between MooO MooO as a sign of distress to MooO MooO as a sign of coming into heat. While many long for the good 'ol cow punching days the writer is not one of them and is a member of the greenhorn school of cattle ranching, thus paid the racket no heed and returned to sleep. At approximately 11:30 the farmer's low voice could be heard at the bedroom door, 'Stuart's out', which is a signal to greenhorn ranchers to get their butt out of bed and go looking for Angus bulls in the middle of the night.

The reader has likely not seen or been to the Hardy Beef Animal Ranch, so a short geography and demographics lesson is in order. The Hardy ranch sits on four acres which has been incorporated into the City of West Linn for nearly six years. Up until that time it was more commonly known as the Hardy Hog Ranch on which hogs were raised, naturally. It was a tranquil setting surrounded by berry and wheat fields, tree farms and open spaces. Since the City gobbled up land by force and coercing farmers to sell their property, the landscape has changed dramatically. The Hardy Beef Animal Ranch is the only producing farm in the area and is surrounded within a stone throw away by a 600 plus unit apartment complex and a three story assisted living center. The new City Hall resides less than a half mile away, as do the two obligatory Starbucks. Mansions, town houses, homes "starting in the 300's", now all dot the hills of West Linn where once there were open fields and mountain views.

The Hardy Beef Animal Ranch sees many visitors each week. Dog walkers, exercise enthusiasts, and soccer moms with small children all delight in watching the antics of the animals on the ranch. They often stop and visit with Farmer Bill and pet the beef animals. Often there are unauthorized feedings, which can lead to fence damage as the animals reach and crane their necks over the fence for a treat. The SE corner of the ranch is a favorite beef animal spot as it is closest to the road with a lot human traffic. It is also the most neglected part of the ranch since it is the spot farthest from the ranch house. Alert readers will have already imagined the result of this recipe for disaster; an area with little beef animal supervision, high 'city folk' traffic, and an eight hundred pound bull looking for a treat any way he can get it. Stuart's Night Out, Part II follows. Some readers may remember Stuart's first time out eating the landscaped shrubbery at the multimillion-dollar estate down the street.

Upon hearing the late night distress calls of Cookie the Heifer, Farmer Bill investigated what all the commotion was about as it is his nature to do so, and discovered the ranch was sans an Angus bull and had a downed section of fence in the SE corner. He then proceeded to rouse the farm hands and form a posse.

Although incorporated into the City of West Linn, lighting is absent on most of the street leading to the ranch so high power flashlights are in order, which is your writer's specialty. A quick but thorough canvassing of the immediate area showed little sign of the escapee and the only tracks found were at the breakout site. Smart criminals often use terrain to hide their tracks and Angus bulls are no exception to this. After driving an honest three miles in the immediate area it because obvious there would not be a quick resolution to the situation and the posse decided to split up.

The writer's efforts of driving up and down neighborhood streets, cul de sacs, and other french words for 'road' proved fruitless. The newly formed residential areas resemble others that are influenced by urban growth boundary legislation, which is a fancy way of saying "Make it look like Southern California", thus the streets snake and turn at random with no grid. Being after midnight in West Linn, most vehicles on the road are police cruisers as West Linn is very pro-police, as any reader visiting the city would come to understand. Apparently a concerned citizen called 911 regarding a runaway 'cow' seen on the corner of Tanner and Blakenship, which is nearly two miles from the Hardy Beef Animal Ranch and about 50 yards from I-205. Tanner Street is nearly a mile long and has a very steep grade of 7%, which feeds almost directly to the I-205 on-ramps. The police being concerned of the possible collision between car and beast, were patrolling that area and Farmer Bill happened to come into contact with an officer on foot looking for tracks. The aforementioned posse later caught up with Farmer Bill and the police in tracking wayward Stuart.

A female police officer, an avid bow hunter, and your writer tracked the beast in the bush and brambles where deer that have been pushed from their previous homes reside. It appears the bull visited for a short while then moved on. The duo tracked the beast towards the interstate by find occasional hoof prints in mud on the side of the road, but tracks for the most part were not apparent. It should be noted your writer was tracking the beast in the wrong direction for some time until it was determined that he changed direction and headed back up steep Tanner street. The best part of this adventure was having a flashlight brighter than the police were carrying.

By this time, nearly 2 AM, there were no less than three police officers added to the cattle posse. Staying near the police was a good strategy. Exclamations overheard on a police radio indicated that another 911 call had be placed and the 'perp' was sighted at the intersection of Rosemont and Salamo, over a mile and up an impossibly steep road from were the last set of tracks had been found. Fortunately for Farmer Bill certain members of the posse had brought along their Motorola hand held radios and the beef animal's "40" was put out over the airwaves.

It was not long until the coalition posse arrived on scene, while of course your writer drove past, crossed the road, and then had to turn around. The beast was corned in a cul de sac of a new townhouse development and quickly eluded Farmer Bill and officers in pursuit back up Salamo road. As fortune or perhaps animal instinct would have it, the beast headed straight to a 3 sided structure of a former cattle rancher (now out of the business so that he City could build a new middle school). The contents of the structure were a Suzuki Samurai, an old Ford pickup, an outboard motorboat, and most importantly a hundred bales of hay. Fortune continued to the favor the posse, as the structure was completely fenced off with a swinging gate wide open. An alert officer closed the gate and jig was up for Stu. Shortly there after he was lassoed and Farmer Bill returned home courtesy of West Linn's finest for water and feed to calm the excited beast.

After Stuart had a rest he was haltered and the original posse members walked him the long mile home while the peace officers turned cattle posse drove off into the night. The apprehended perpetrator was mostly cooperative, as cooperative as any 800 pound bull being pulled by two men at three in the morning could be expected. Soon he was back in his house and boarded in for the remainder of the night. Cookie the Heifer could still be heard on the range, MooO MooO MooO.
 
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