Cow Marco Polo

The Mild Wife and I recently decided that it was safe enough to hazard a hike at a nearby trail. We were still good about wearing our masks and socially distancing, but hiking is probably a particularly good solitary activity. It's not like you need to team up with other people in order to make it to the end of a short trail. What's more, we also made sure to get there early to avoid lots of people, so there were plenty of precautions involved.

In either case, this meant that we found ourselves on a trail doing a morning hike. As you can probably imagine, it's been a while since either of us has partaken in this particular activity, so we definitely noticed that there were a few muscles we hadn't used in a while. I mean, we've still been trying to exercise during the pandemic, but sometimes there just aren't great substitutions for the real deal. Let's just say that the Mild Wife and I both remembered the next day that we had been hiking the day before (note: this also means we have resolved to try to go on hikes more often).

However, the most interesting bit about this particular hike had nothing to do with the exercise involved or our muscles. No, it involved some cows.

You see, this particular trail has cows that roam near it. It is, in effect, a part of nature. It's clearly a trail and has a very intentional path that cuts through the hillside, but there are signs saying that sometimes you will see cows nearby. You're not supposed to get too close or mess with them in any way, since they are still large animals in the wild. They're not exactly the first thing you think of in terms of dangerous animals, but an adult cow easily outweighs an adult human by a factor of 3 or 4 (and that's for the smaller ones). You don't want an angry one coming at you.

So, when we heard a cow mooing loudly near the trail, it caught our attention. Now, I haven't been around cattle enough to understand their mooing, but this did not sound like a nonchalant communication. The Mild Wife and I both got the sense that this cow was distressed for some reason.

One other detail that caught our attention was that this cow kept walking parallel to the trail (and on it, for a spell). We've been on that trail before, and we've only ever seen the cows cross over from one side to the other. They take their time doing so, but they rarely follow the actual path of the trail. I would assume that since there's no grass on the trail, it's not particularly appealing to them.

So, this cow was walking on and around the trail, mooing somewhat insistently. At some point, we heard a response from a different cow, so it almost sounded like they were communicating to each other by yelling out. I sort of theorized that it was a mama cow looking for her baby cow, calling out repeatedly to see if she could find her calf. That would have also explained the "urgency" that we heard, since that seems like a scenario where the adult cow would be distressed.

At that point, we gave that cow a wide berth. Again, these are animals that outweigh the Mild Wife and I by at least one order of magnitude. Disturbing an agitated one that has maternal instincts kicking in is not something I would describe as a good idea.

What was really interesting was that the cows kept doing this. The cow-on-the-trail kept calling out. I don't know if this invalidated our theory or not, but they did the call and response several times. By this point, we had bumped into another pair of hikers, who were also giving the cow a wide berth. We chatted for a bit as we slowly, slowly trailed this cow, and I remarked that they were still calling out to each other.

Basically, they were playing a cow version of the "Marco Polo" game on the trail. Our newfound friends were highly amused by this turn of phrase, and it stuck. Fortunately, the "Marco" cow wandered off the trail shortly thereafter, but by then we had an amusing anecdote to tell.

I know I said that the Mild Wife and I want to go on other hikes, but I sure hope we don't get a repeat of this performance. Funny or not, I'm not sure I want to relive Cow Marco Polo.