©2001/2007 Starla Kaye

Blossom used her long tail to swat another pesky fly from her withers. Stupid fly. Stupid Kansas in July. She’d already made way more laps around the field today in search of the choicest grass to chew on than she wanted to make. Her hooves hurt. She wanted to slip stomach deep into a nice, muddy pond and let it soothe her frustrations.

But there wasn’t a pond in this field. How utterly annoying. Not that anyone else appeared to care. No, the rest of the mixed-breed dairy herd seemed content to follow that snotty, self-elected leader, Elsie, from one patch of grass to another.

Not Blossom, though. She’d had more than enough of Elsie’s high-hoofedness lately. Blossom was not a follower. She was an adventurer. Okay, she often got into trouble, much to Elsie, the prissy, do-gooder Jersey’s delight.

Right now Blossom needed an adventure. She needed someplace new to explore. She needed something to appease her quest for relief from this bovine boredom.

Mulling over the idea, she lowered her head and snagged another batch of grass. As she swung her head up, a clod of earth bopped her on the nose, hard. Her eyes immediately burned with tears. Even from halfway across the field she heard Elsie’s snort.

When she looked in the older cow’s direction, she saw Elsie’s small, honey-brown body quivering in amusement. Annoying lightweight.

Blossom narrowed her eyes, and at the same time batted away that fly continuing to pester her.

Elsie quivered even harder.

Peeved, Blossom turned away. Stupid Jersey laughed at her all the time.

Blossom shook her head until the dirt fell free. She was nearly so lost in her spurt of annoyance that she missed spotting a break in the fence. Nearly. From the corner of one eye, she saw the small break in the wire at the corner of the two fields.

She blinked, her mouth dropped open in amazement. The snack she’d snared forgotten.

They’d never been allowed in the other field, a field that had rows of some kind of vining plants over poles. She remembered seeing people wander through those rows occasionally and look at little ball-like things that grew in clusters. Sometimes they picked the clusters off and took them into the building that stood at the side of the field. Sometimes the people rolled a big barrel around behind the building. She’d been curious about all of it for a long time. What would those plants taste like? Would she have room to wander between the rows? She wasn’t one of the thinnest cows on the place. And what was in that barrel?

This was her chance to go investigate, but she didn’t want any of the others following her. This was her adventure.

Trying to act nonchalant, she ambled around to see what the herd was doing. She fought down a giddy squeal of delight. Elsie had evidently decided it was time to head back across the field, for Lord knew what reason. Head high with importance, she led the others away. Of course, she’d expect Blossom to follow.

Not going to happen, non-worthy leader.

A butterfly skipped through the air in front of her nose, fluttering in the direction of the other field. At 1,500 pounds, a Holstein like her couldn’t skip along or flutter. But she felt a renewed spring in her step as she made her break for the downed part of the fence. Although this wasn’t her first adventure, it was strange to be going off alone. Strange but wonderful.

Her hooves practically flew over the grass. It took a little contorting but she squeezed through the downed section of fence beside a tree. She raced along toward the rows of wither-high, thick vines. Her nostrils flared. Something smelled different, sweet. Sort of like the clover the herd found once in a while. The smell seemed to come from the barrel next to the building.

Fleet of foot she sped toward the barrel. Something small and crooked stuck out from the wooden side, dripping some kind of liquid into a plastic tub on the ground. Whatever it was, it smelled good. Tempting. Too tempting.

Blossom dipped her head down and took a long slurp of the liquid. Hmmm. Not water. Not like anything she had ever tasted before.

She slurped again and again. Good stuff. Definitely worth sneaking away from the herd for. She lapped up the dark liquid until the bowl that had been nearly full was empty. Her eyes crossed and she swayed a bit on her feet. Whoa baby. Whatever that stuff was it packed a punch. She might have to find a nice shady spot and lay down for a short nap.

“Git!” came a rude, too loud voice from the corner of the building. “Get away from there.”

Blossom tried to look at whoever was yelling at her, but her eyes couldn’t seem to focus. Suddenly her back legs gave out. She found herself collapsing and it completely confused her. Unable to resist her body’s urge to lie down, she did just that.

She was lying there, head bobbing, wondering why there appeared to be two buildings now, when Farmer Sam came up beside the man who’d shouted at her. Actually, there were two Farmer Sams.

He looked into the barrel and then grinned. With a chuckle, he said, “It appears Blossom had a little taste of wine. First drunk cow I’ve run across.” He laughed again. “I don’t think she’ll be traveling back to the other pasture anytime soon, probably not even tonight.”

Blossom’s eyes closed and her head plopped to the ground. All she could think about before she drifted off into a fuzzy sleep was that Elsie would give her hell for wandering off like this. But she really didn’t care.