Great image by moos.

I didn't have a clue as to what these cowboy types meant by a horse having "a little cow" in him, until I met my appaloosa mare, Lacey Jay.

I'd woken up one too many mornings at my Pojoaque house with Mr. L.'s steers snoozing in my tree-lined driveway like big lawn ornaments that pooped. Everywhere.

I'd chased them too many times with a straw broom down the driveway. Big, dumb brutes. I almost felt guilty whacking the slow-witted creatures with a household implement. They'd scramble up onto four hooves, half-dazed, and trot half-heartedly towards the river. But by this time, several weeks later into their apparent freedom from their pastures at San Ildefonso Pueblo, they'd decided to stand their ground. New Mexico is after all, a fence-out state. And what limited barbed wire surrounded my property would hardly keep a goat out.

So I threw on my coveralls over my pajamas and boots and saddled up Lacey Jay and started off after them at a trot, wielding the broom. This quickly turned into a hell-bent for leather kamakaze attack, broom dropped in the dust and forgotten as I just held on in complete shock. You see, Lacey Jay had "a little cow" in her, although no one had forewarned me of this fact, and I wouldn't have known what it meant even if her previous owner had chosen to disclose this to me about the rawboned mare's past.

Beneath all of those polka dots was one cow detesting equine.

As the bovines awoke from their slumber at the sound of Lacey's rattling hooves and headed in a panic towards the river, she caught up with one of the slackers halfway through the arroyo and sunk her yellow teeth firmly into its rump. You could almost smell their fear. And then she soundly ran down and bit two more of the steers before I managed to rein her in. I'd just wanted to scare them out of my flowerbeds, after all. Not murder them by appaloosa.

Last night my son and I are sitting on the front porch, watching the stars, when all of a sudden the geese began screaming. And I realize that they haven't been locked into the hen house yet for the night and that something is after them. Something big. And with claws.

I hear the sound of the metal water fountains crashing against the side of the hen house. I imagine them being chased around in terror by that old bobcat who's already eaten two of my geese, including my favorite Darwin, five hens, and one good barn cat.

So I'm yelling for Dennis that something's after the geese and the chickens and he comes running out, and I'm already halfway down to the hen house in the pitch black dark, waving a coleman lantern, when Dennis fires off a couple of shots to scare that big cat off. And as I rush to the gate, I am yelling, growling like a bear, like a big she grizzly, GRRRRRRR GRRRRRRR GRRRRRRRR, for all I'm worth, at whatever it is that is lurking in the dark and is after my birds. Dennis is close behind me. I can hear his breathing.

When we get there, there's no cat.

Or is it a bear? Or a mountain lion?

Well, whatever the hell it is, we've managed to scare it off. We count the two geese and the five remaining chickens who have sought refuge in their laying boxes. We are so happy to see that no one's been eaten that we are suddenly laughing in relief. As if this is the funniest thing that's just happened. This story of life and death. Predators and prey.

And at that exact moment, I realize to my complete surprise that I've just gone off on the offensive against a predator in the dark, wielding not even a broom, just a battery-operated Coleman lantern. I certainly didn't think that one through, I am telling Dennis.

And I realize that perhaps I've "got a little bobcat" in me.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRR ...