Just a Neighborly Visit
From Neighborly Farms
By Shahid Khan

Last Monday morning, I am sitting in my nice comfortable chair at my computer in my basement office with Jazz our Weimaraner at my feet, trying to think of something profound, or at least important, to write about. Questions, like clouds, are floating about in my brain. I can’t seem to get three connected thoughts down on the screen.

Should I write about current events in Pakistan? The Olympics are coming up so maybe I could write about my teenage experiences in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution? While these thoughts are whirling about, I am dimly aware of a rumble in the driveway and a curious shaking of the ground. Maybe the UPS man is driving up or one of my neighbors is tooling about on his tractor.

Jazz perks up his ears, bounds up the stairs to the front door and starts barking. Fully expecting our UPS man Joe to be dashing back to his van after dropping off some package my wife has ordered, I look out the window and am completely floored by the sight of four or five hulking Holsteins staring back at me. I don’t know what I am thinking but I open the door and suddenly I am up close to some really big, smelly, fly-ridden, tail-swishing and poop-splattering milkers with nothing but a scrawny screen door between us.

After I get over my shock, I look the closest one in the eye and say "Hey! Get the h*** outta here!" She responds with a blood-curdling "Moooouuuuuuuuhhhh!"

Before she is finished, her companions join her in a dairy chorus, and just as Jazz goes berserk running in circles like a crazed Tasmanian Devil, I spy another fifty of her friends bumping into each other, trying to squeeze themselves through the narrow space between our garage and a stone wall which frames the path to our front door.

The corner of the wall supporting a pot of geraniums goes down in a pile of rubble, causing a wide-eyed panic in the herd and I quickly close the door as hooves clatter and some of the more agile visitors go airborne and jump over the wall. I try to think of my next move. First thing I have to do is get out of my PJs.

I don’t speak "Cow" so I don’t know what they want. Do they want to come in? Why? It’s not time to be milked. Even a city boy like me knows they don’t get milked until four in the afternoon. Besides I haven’t the foggiest notion about how to milk a cow. I would probably squeeze the wrong part and get a kick in the head for my troubles. Maybe they’re out on a marketing call! "Hey! We got fresh raw milk and organic cheese down the road – why don’t you come down and try some. We just thought we’d visit with the neighbors and tell them about our farm store!"

"Yeah, great! Thanks for dropping by but I’m off dairy right now anyway – it gives me too much gas. OK, OK - everything gives me gas, but did you ladies think about going to the bathroom before you decided to go visiting? It’s not very polite to do it all over my front lawn. Yeah, the fertilizer will make the grass grow quicker but mowing once a week is enough of a chore."

All this time, I am hopping about on one foot, trying to get a leg into my jeans, wondering where my camera is and calling Neighborly Farms down the road which is where I suspect all my new friends call home. "Hello!" says a sweet female voice. "Neighborly Farms. How can I help you?"

"Hi! This is Shahid Khan up on Turkey Hill. I think your whole herd is in my front yard," I try to say in a calm voice. "Oh! Somebody will be there right away to get them," she says without a pause. I hang up, finish getting into my jeans and pull a rumpled t-shirt over my head. Where’s my belt? No time to look, so I slip on my shoes and holding up my jeans with one hand, I venture out the door and step gingerly into the fray.

By this time, my new friends have figured out they are at a dead end and the neighbors aren’t as friendly as they thought. It doesn’t take much to get them to start making their way back down my drive and I think, "Wow! I can handle this. Now they know who’s boss around here." I hear an ATV barreling up my driveway as I pretend to be an experienced cowherd, which is hard to do since I am still trying to keep my jeans from falling down around my ankles and tripping over them. The ATV makes a turn and goes off into the woods looking for stragglers.

"You might want to look around the back of the house for more of them," I yell after him.

"We’ll count ‘em up and make sure," says the guy, one of the hands on the farm who waves back to me when I drive into town daily.

As I trudge back to my house, I survey the damage. Apart from the debris of the herd’s natural body functions, the small pile of fallen rocks, an overturned planter and some trampled grass, things look pretty good. Amazingly, the newly weeded and mulched flowerbeds are looking no worse for wear. The cows have stepped daintily around them leaving no evidence except for a couple of hoof prints here and there.

Back at the house, I’m on the phone with Linda Dimmick, owner of Neighborly Farms and award-winning cheese maker. "Hi Linda. Your cows just paid me a visit and I guess there is a little mess that needs to be cleaned up," I say.

"I know, somebody left the gate open and I’m not happy about it. Don’t worry, we have insurance if there is any damage," she says quickly.

"I don’t think it’s that serious - just a bunch of cow pies and a fallen stone wall," I assure her, " but I’d like it taken care of sooner rather than later since we just put our house on the market".

"We’ll take care of it!" she says as she rings off.

Fifteen minutes later a crew is raking, shoveling and spreading sawdust around the driveway and the lawn. Just like that it’s all over like nothing happened.

It’s not only good fences that make good neighbors.

(Shahid Khan and his wife Lee live in North Randolph. He is president of the board of Vermont Public Television and is an occasional contributor to The Herald, including accounts of his visits to his native Pakistan.)