Actually, it’s not getting to the grasshoppers, but I wish it were.

Thursday morning I spied several cattle grazing on our lawn. These are calves, so I’m told.

They look full-grown to me!

Having cattle roaming the place isn’t completely unexpected. Some of the land is leased to relatives of the former owners, and it’s used for cattle pasture. Still, the cattle are supposed to be in the back pasture, not out front.

Being the cattle-savvy rancher that I am, I decided to shoo the cows back to their proper place. I opened the gate to their pasture and held out my arms like airport ground crew, hoping the cows would understand my signals and know right where to go.

This didn’t work out as planned.

After I herded the cattle into the neighbor’s creek, I went back to our property and closed the gate back up, hoping the other eleven cattle were still way back in the field where they were supposed to be. Then I called the cattle owner.

“Erm… I don’t know much about cattle, but… should someone do something about this?”

The guy said, “Nope. Just leave ’em be, and we’ll get out there sometime to check on them.”

So I forgot about the cattle.

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About two hours later, I was exhausted from doing chores in the heat and humidity. The carpet in our (still) unfurnished living room looked inviting, so I stretched out flat on my back and imagined mirages on the ceiling.

Aaaah.

I had a sneaking suspicion I was being watched, and sure enough, someone was at the door, probably wondering what kind of person lolls around on the carpet like that.

When I opened the door, an elementary school boy was standing there, sporting Wranglers and blond shocks. He was holding a box of seasonal vegetables, brown eggs, and home-canned jellies.

I said hi. He didn’t say a word.

“Um…” (feeling surreal… searching for a different tactic…) “Whatcha got going on?”

He finally found his tongue and blurted out, “Those’re our cattle back there!”

Oh! The son of the cattle owners, nephew of the former home owners.

“Oh… uh, are you here by yourself?”

“No, my high-school brother brought me.”

“Oh!”

After a cryptic exchange, I finally deduced that the box of produce was a gift for me (apparently for scaring their cattle off), and that I’d better go show his brother where the cows had wondered a couple hours ago.

But I couldn’t wait to get back inside and poke through that box of home grown produce!

The boy’s mom had sent brown eggs from their chickens…

onions (strong!)…

zucchini and other squashes…

aaaand…

apricot and sand plum jellies!

I may have shed a couple tears while digging through that box. We didn’t get to plant a garden this year because of the move. Does the home grown goodness around here have no end?

I also managed to learn from the boy that his family sells their produce at a local farmer’s market. Visiting their stand is high on my list. So is making homemade bread to go with those jellies, now that I’m back at a normal elevation for baking.

After the boys had wandered the fields in the blazing heat for a while (which was after they had driven half an hour to get here), I came out to ask how it was going…

And… the wandering calves didn’t belong to their family.

Did you notice the blue tag on the ear in the first picture? That tag means something, so I’m told.

I’m only allowing myself to feel slightly sheepish about this. I’ve been convincing myself that the box of goodies somehow must have been preordained to come to my doorstep, like a “welcome home” reminder. This could be a reasonable explanation for the mix-up, right?

It was meant to be.

Have a moooo-vingly homey Wednesday.

P.S. Does anyone know how to locate owners of wandering mammoth calves?