A city girl and a cow

This strange but wonderful world immediately appealed to me with its innocent beauty and openness.

But, that being said, I was completely naïve about farm life and everything that went with it.

It seemed like an entirely different world with all its gravel roads and antelopes walking freely a few metres away.

I went with the men to feed the cattle because I wanted to see the world of farming.

It was quite a drive as we went into the bush.

Getting out of the bakkie, I was suddenly surrounded by all these massive creatures with horns almost as tall as I am standing, a few feet from me.

Over-exaggerating a little, but it seemed that way at first.

I stood rooted to the spot for a while, trying to stare down this one cow that kept giving me the evil eye.

While I was in this eye-combat, war-like trance, the men moved on with what they needed to do and when I finally won the battle of the mightiest stare, I realised that I had been abandoned in the middle of a crowd of these beasts.

I saw the men were standing at the other end of the pasture and suddenly a few metres extended into what felt like 10km.

In the back of my mind I saw the men were looking in my direction, but I did not give it a second thought as my mind was whirling with possibilities of how to get out of this situation unmarked and intact.

Still standing motionless, my eyes were drawn to the cow with the evil eye.

It now had friends with it.

Great.

I’m getting multiple evil eyes now.

I eventually retreated and was now even further away from the group of humans laughing at me.

I walked the extra few miles around the massive man-eating horde of beasts and made it to a place of safety at the vehicle.

Or so I thought.

When I turned around, I saw the cattle slowly advancing in my direction and felt a sinking feeling of fear.

I have been marked!

I reach inside the front of the bakkie and pull out a Stanley knife, at this point not caring what the people say.

I shall protect myself against these horned creatures.

Anxiously waiting for the attack, I ignore the farm people laughing at me and cling tightly to my weapon of mass destruction.

A few seconds later, the animals stop, bend their heads, and start eating.

Idiocy doesn’t even begin to describe what I felt, so I calmly retracted the blade and put it back in its place.

Returning to the men, I saw they were still laughing at my silent war with a cow, but I felt very proud of myself as I handled the situation without these humans who abandoned me and simply dismissed them.

I faced off against a mighty beast and escaped unscathed.