Hendrix and his playfulness caused me to almost expire a few days later! Sheila had asked if her cows could please graze on Irma's land, as her grazing was a bit depleted, and with the rain staying away, the drought kept the farmers from selling off their surplus hay. Thus her herd, including the very loving Jessie, and the bally rude and extremely bad tempered Josie, were happilly grazing away, when I decided to take Hendrix down to the river for a swim. The sun was hot, and I was feeling happy and at one with the world, and so was Hendrix, until he decided that as I wouldn't run and play with him, he would find another playmate! Unfortunately he decided that Josie was the one for him, and he ran in front, and started to bark and growl, but friendly growling, running in circles around the cow to get her attention! Well, I don't think that I would have had the guts to tease Josie for a play, and I was wondering when the old cow would get fed-up with Hendrix, as she was just not the playful kind, and the one who used to kick the poor Bush whenever she got tired of the milking process! At first she just lifted her head and tried to stare him into leaving her in peace, but Hendrix must have seen the stare as an invite, because his teasing became quite frantic, and he was laughing with a wide open mouth, begging her to come and play,  and when Josie started swishing her tail angrily from side to side, I tried to calm Hendrix down, and get him down to the water.
But he was too excited to heed me, and when Josie suddenly looked up and gave one angry bellow, and stormed the hapless dog, I knew we were in for a spot of trouble! When he realized that the cow was not playing, he decided to run to me for help, and I decided not to wait and see if she would pass me and go for the dog, so I also took to my heels! And what did the bally Hendrix do? He splitted from me, and ran the opposite way, and looking over my shoulder, I saw the enraged cow at my heels, so, with my waterboots chafing all the skin off my feet, I cleared huge boulders, tore my pants going over a few of the rough and thorny Karoo brush, and got a nasty scape from a huge bramble that I was trying to manipulate into growing along the wire fence! I could feel the cow's warm breathe in my neck, and that was enough to make me run like an Olympic champion, not only sprinting, but the  hurdles I cleared at a gallop would have been a world record, and to crown it all, it was steeply uphill to the house! On seeing my gate and realizing that I was almost safe, I really put my leg muscles to work, and with my last strength and my sidesadles shaking like a blamange, I covered the hundred metres to safety, and was able to close the gate seconds before the enraged cow reached it, and standing there panting and trying to draw some air into my poor lungs, something really strange happened. Josie, who came to a stop about two metres past the gate, turned around, and looked at me with such a friendly look that I was startled out of my wits, but when she shook her head, and I think she winked at me also, and started calmly walking back to her grazing spot, I was quite flustered, and for ages afterwards wondered if she was really chasing me to do harm, or whether she was just playing! On the top photo, Josie is the cow furthest away, eating up Danny's pear tree!