If there's anything more hated than dandelions on the lawn, it must be cows. I woke up to it yesterday: COWS ON THE LAWN! SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING BEFORE THEY WRECK THE MANICURED PERFECTION THAT IS OUR FRONT LAWN! I grabbed Howdy and jumped up bareback. My good gelding goes straight to work, ears perked, body sinuous and eager. The cows are reluctant to move from the good grass, but file out onto the road... in the opposite direction that I want them to go, of course.

About 1400 cattle are pastured on the adjacent forest service land each summer, and each year end up occasionally on the ranch. (With 360 acres of fencing, do you really believe I have time to check it ALL? Not this year!) The cattle belong to neighboring ranchers, and have been using this range for years. They're more gentle than any forest service cows I've met previously, and they know their gates as well as I do. These probably know the closest gate is Second Creek, but they're hoping on staying in my pasture for the next week, so they're going to head south instead.

Strung out along the county road, I get the five head moving. Oh good, there's another five bawling to them... from behind my east pasture fence. I jump off Howdy (who is annoyed at having to be distracted from watching cows) and lay open the barbed wire gate onto the road. Might as well get them all together before they start tearing down fences. We walk back to the barn. If I have to push these cows nearly a mile to the next forest service gate, I might as well have the security of a saddle.

Gunner is waiting at the gate, so he gets to be the lucky one. There's a certain synchronisity when working cows by horseback. Your horse feels your energy, your attention, your focus, and moves almost with your thought. I didn't speak as we gathered the ten cows together, moving them, feinting and pushing them, circling them and guiding them on to the gravel. Now, I know you should only push cows at a walk, but I had chores to do, and herding stray cattle was keeping horses from being fed. I hurried them along at a nice trot, aiming for the Needle Rock Pass access gate.

Of course, as I mentioned, these forest service cows tend to be pretty sensitive to a gate (especially when I'm putting some pressure on them), and they were eager to jump through the break in the fence, onto L & M's cleanly mowed turf. I saw that first cow go and Gunner and I sprang forward, cutting off seven more. Gunner spooked hard left at the gate lying on the ground, and we leapt through the opening after the three strays. Cutting around them, we turned them back, and suddenly I hear my name. "Ciara! Ciara!" I look around. L is standing in her doorway, gesturing like Gunner and I should stop by for tea. I shout back "hello!" and she shouts something else but there are two pickup trucks coming down the road threatening to scatter the other seven cows and the three strays are headed in the direction I want them to go and I assume L treasures her lawn enough to forgive my rudeness but I'm obviously in the middle of something here. The cows jump and pop through the gate as though they are surprised at having gone through it, and I swing them in an arc to the north, toward the eventual gate onto forest service land, and away from the oncoming pickups and our neighbor Joe Cocker, who has chosen this moment to walk his two elderly dogs and probably wasn't expecting a wild stampede, not to mention TWO pickups (which is about what our road sees in a day!).

The cows are acting slightly insulted as I push them through an irrigation ditch, so when they sull up in a hole of scrub oak I back off and let them reconvene. I circle quietly around them and head up trail to open the locked gate. Gunner is jacked up and trots off as I mount, toward the cows which have split in two groups. A shifty-eyed Angus is already looking for escape. I push her ahead, and four follow. Three are undecided about moving, and two have wandered back toward the road. Hearing our movement through the brush, they hesitate, and slowly rethink their situation. My first cow walks sullenly past the gate. From holding in hesitation, we bound in leaps in a half circle, trying to turn her back without upsetting the others. The blonde cow gets the picture. She's had enough of this running around nonsense, and walks through the gate with her head held aloft, as though she's been affronted. I work the tail of the line and their herd mentality takes over, the last few eager to catch up, running through the gate like it's the sanctuary they've been looking for all along. They'll follow the trail over Little Coal Creek, and then around Land's End Mountain over the next day or two. I lock the gate behind them, pat my horse's neck, and turn back for home.

"Where did those cows come from," Joe Cocker asks as I greet him. Eloquently, I explain, "You know, the forest." Realizing I am mostly human and only part horse, and therefore probably should be able to communicate better than I am, I add, "There must be a break in the fence somewhere." Joe looks back up toward where the cows are snuffling around the sagebrush, lazily climbing the hill. "Don't they have someone you can call? You shouldn't have to do this yourself." The sweat on Gunner's neck is cooling and the adrenaline in my system is ebbing and I wonder how I can possibly answer that question. Finally, I just say, "I hope not."