A neighbor south of us shares her own wildlife reports from Orange County. ~ A short story to make you smile. And listen for the moo.

A fierce looking cow stood on the corner of a busy intersection. I don’t know how I missed seeing him every day on my way home from work. It was a bronze statue standing where thousands of cows once grazed the coastal hills, a reminder of the rural past. Not unlike the little cow figurine on the dashboard of my car. It stirred an old ache in me. This act of perceived kindness and sentimentality on the part of the developers of our city did not make up for paving over every hill, valley, and field that was the landscape of my youth. Staring at the statue I felt a familiar tug,urging me to take action. For too long I had sat back and watched, powerless in the face of progress.

My connection with the cows began at age nine when my family moved to Irvine. Like a landmark, whenever I returned and saw cows grazing on the hills I knew I was near home. Watching the herders round them up was like a scene out of the Wild West. The herders moved the cows from freshly trimmed hills chewed raw and barren to hills where the gold grass blossomed and swayed in the wind. The supply of hills seemed endless. Looking back on my youth, I now realize that the cows were my connection with nature, which was lost when they disappeared.

When I was twelve years old, my friend Chuck and I were tossing the Frisbee back and forth as cows nibbled the grass in the field behind his house. One of us threw the Frisbee too far. We both hopped on his brick fence, dangled our legs and watched to see what the cows were going to do. One lone cow separated a bit from the herd, stepped on it and sniffed it. Before long the Frisbee had been sniffed, stepped on and pushed along into the center of the herd. We never did get our Frisbee back.

Four years later Chuck and I were in a toy store admiring miniature animal figurines. He held a cow in his hand, and whispered in my ear, "Trina, I dare you to take it."

I joked, "Sure, I'll take it to the cash register," as I grabbed the cow from his hand.

He pulled it back, shoved it in his jacket pocket. "That's not what I meant."

"I can't and you shouldn’t either."

"Chicken, bock, bock, bock."

"Shush, or you'll get caught."

"Not, if they hear us making animal noises."

"I'm a chicken, bok, bok, bok, bok, bok."

"Moo, moo, moo."

Then we both started giggling and walked out of the store. We loved to dare each other and Chuck’s wildness encouraged my own. Thankfully that was as close as we got to real crime, but later Chuck traded me the cow for some baseball cards I had bought. I let him think I had stolen them, just to make us even. That's how I ended up with a cow figurine, which is still with me on the dashboard of my VW Rabbit.

Gridlocked in traffic, I shifted my gaze between the cow statue and my own cow figurine. I thought I heard something that sounded like "moo.” I had not slept well the night before, and now burdened with heavy traffic, half-crazed with the lingering effects of a long day at work, writing boring software manuals, I figured I was imagining things. But there was no mistaking it, I heard, "Moo, Moo, Moo," coming from the cow figurine.

In shock I looked at the statue across the intersection and saw that its ears were twitching in response to my little cow mooing. I thought "I'm hallucinating," but of course it all made sense. Of course a cow would moo at another cow. Forget it, that's nonsense, they are both statues not real animals, I told myself over and over again.

I felt that familiar tug in my side, urging me to do something. It was my call for action. An idea began to form. I wondered who would be willing to participate in my odd, half-baked nonsensical plan. The answer of course was Chuck, my childhood friend, who remodels houses, is an animal lover and who's been a regular willing participant in many of my other wild plans. I called Chuck on the cell phone and said, "Hey Chuck, I got a crazy idea."

"Last time you said those words, we took Bob's Big Boy, the Anteater (mascot of UCI), launched water balloon fights, put shaving cream on the passed out drunks in the dorms, started food fights and more recently email bombed our wrong-doing friends."

"Those were just fun pranks This plan's different."

"Yeah, I've heard that before. Where the hell are ya?"

"My plan's wacky just like you like it. I'm stuck in traffic waiting for some wreck to get hauled outta here."

"So what’s the plan?"

"It's kinda like Free Willie. But it’s got to do with cows."

"There’s no cows in Orange County," Chuck said, laughing.

That night I checked the Internet for grazing sites in California. Chuck was right; cows were no longer in Orange County. I was glad to learn that plenty of cows still grazed in northern and central California. I knew that it would require too much ingenuity on our part to get the cow on an airplane. We needed to relocate the cow to some park where it would have grass under its feet.

I met Chuck at 3 A.M. as planned. I had shovels and rope, and I knew Chuck had more in his truck. The intersection was deserted at that hour of the morning. It was spooky, and we were quiet as we unloaded, glancing furtively over our shoulders whenever we saw a headlight. As we rapidly dug in the dry dirt I glanced at the cow. When its feet were loose and no longer buried, I swear it winked at me. I elbowed Chuck in the ribs, and whispered "Did you see that?"

He said, "See what?" and shrugged his shoulders. We continued digging and digging. We were sweating and breathing heavily, not so much from exertion, but from fear that we would get caught. I imagined cops pulling up with their sirens blaring, or a helicopter circling over our heads as a loud speaker shouted, "You down there, drop the shovels, put your hands behind your heads." Fortunately for us, the cops did not show up as we freed the cow.

When the cow was loose, we covered him up with a blanket and struggled to put him on a dolly. Chuck and I half hauled, half pushed the dolly into the bed of the truck.

In the truck, Chuck said, "So? Where we taking him?"

"To William Mason Regional Park. Know where it is?

"Sure, over in Irvine, sorta near the University."

"Yeah. I want us to place him near the lake. We'll make it look like he's wandered over to the lake for a drink of water."

"Sure. I can't wait to read what the paper says about this."

The Orange County Weekly’s cover showed the cow statue in his new home. The headline read, "Bonita Canyon Cow Statue Mysteriously Found In Irvine Park", full story on page 5. The article explained that due to a practical joke, the statue had been highjacked and moved, but after several meetings and differences of opinion, the city abandoned plans to return the cow to its original site. Some say it was due to a poll taken on a morning radio show, the day after the cow relocation. People called in to express that the cow looked better in his new home than in the middle of concrete and traffic. When asked who the callers thought moved the cow, some believed it was the city or the developers for a publicity stunt. Only one anonymous resident said, "Some wacko animal lover probably moved the cow as an environmental statement." Reading the quote, I smiled for that was Chuck's M.O. He had a knack for finding some clever way to reveal our stunt without getting us in trouble.

Two weeks later, fresh from a good night's sleep, I decided to visit the cow. It did not wink, moo or twitch its ears. When I looked into its placid bronze eyes, they looked happier. Fresh flowers had been newly planted at its feet, along with a small plaque saying, "Dedicated to the cows of Irvine who once grazed upon our hills." A light breeze lifted my hair, and when I shut my eyes, I thought I could hear their ghostly moos in the distance.

**************************************************** Julie Shapiro is a poet and fiction writer, who also writes, researches and does marketing communications work in the health industry.

She is working on short stories in the genres of science fiction, satire and fantasy. Many of her stories are generated from kernels in poems she has written.

Among her recently published works, “Lester’s Head” appeared in the February edition of Millenniumshift.com and “The Heart. An Unknown Beat” was in the summer edition of Megaera.org.

Julie resides in Pacific Beach, California with her husband Louis. She Enjoys bike riding and running along the coast.