We first drove out to the old farmhouse that was my grandparent’s home dating back to 1921. We stopped and I took photos of everyone in front of the house like I have been doing all my life it seems. It was much too cold to stay in the house without starting a fire and we didn’t want to stay that long so we moved on. Our driving around continued and we managed to see a few deer, many small animals such as rabbits, squirrels, and such and more than a few seasonal hawks perched on fence posts and power polls. They appeared to be watching us as much as we were watching them. By far the most abundant animal in “these here parts” are the cattle. There were and are cattle everywhere. Hey, it is Texas!
One of the fairly main county roads we drove on is about 2 miles north of the farmhouse. We had just turned left onto that road when I looked out into the pasture on our right and saw what I at first thought of as “The Goldie Locks Cows”. Why? Because there were three of them standing in formation. A papa, a mama, and a baby. The way they were standing caught my eye and I told my brother-in-law to stop so that I could get a photo. Well, I opened the car door and as soon as I lifted the camera up and was about to take the picture the three cows all raised their heads and turned them in unison to look right at me. SNAP! We all started laughing because it was just too cool that these cows thought enough of me to actually pose for a picture.
Well, the story could have ended there, but if you have read any of my BLOG posts before, then you know it doesn’t. When I got back home a couple of days later and sat down to go through all the photos I had taken (digital, don’t ya know) I got to the photo in question and when it came up on the computer screen I busted out laughing because of an unintended, yet very welcome, “special effect” had happened when I took that picture. All of the cows had glowing green eyes! Staring right at the camera! You can’t stage that kind of thing. Immediately I thought of the tales of aliens coming down and cow-napping (well, they weren’t goats . . .) cattle for whatever bizarre reasons aliens do such things. Therefore, I named the photo “The Alien Cows”. I sent an email to several members of the family and everyone had a good laugh.
Well, I tell this story because it reminds me of how every family has their own little tales of folklore such as “I remember when Uncle Dan blew tea out of his nose at Thanksgiving when Grandpa’s teeth fell into the mash potatoes” or “Do you remember the time Bobby picked up the snake that he thought was a twig?” Aren’t families great? Mine is. I sure hope your family is as special to you as my family is to me. Try to spend as much time with them as you can. You might get to see some alien cows too!
