Most women know about the phenomenon of menstrual synchrony. No, it is not The Police album from the 80's. It is when a group of women who spend a lot of time together, all end up on the same menstrual cycle. I have personally experienced this with friends, coworkers, and female roommates. A freshman floor of college co-eds with PMS is not a pretty thing. Since I tend to be a follower in the menstrual hierarchy, I am all over the calendar depending on who I am spending the most amount of time with. To this day, I am convinced that synching up with my friend Jane, is the reason I ended up pregnant with Scrappy Doo. That and a lack of birth control.
PMS is not a pleasant experience as the Husband can attest to. I tend to get moody and weepy and after 30+ years of getting my period, I am still surprised every month when I realize why the cute kitten video I watched a week earlier made me sob uncontrollably as I shoved carbs in my mouth.
A couple of weeks ago I came home from school and after devouring half a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips and seething with rage because one of the boys had spilled a drop of chocolate ice cream on the table cloth, I went outside to check on the animals. Noelle came over to the fence and started mooing at me in a pathetic pleading tone. I just assumed she had missed me, since I have not been around very much to lavish her with love and attention.
Just as I ducked under the fence to scratch her ears and give her some mama love, the husband walked over.
"I think she's ready."
"For what?"
"To get knocked up. She's been mooing all day and I think I saw some discharge."
"Are you sure it wasn't poop?"
Since I last wrote about our bovine estrus issues, we decided to let nature take its course and leave Noelle with our neighbor's bull for a month. The thought kind of terrified me since she hasn't really spent a lot of time with other cattle, but our neighbor has a small herd of Hereford beef cattle and this option seemed a lot less complicated than AI. Still, I was afraid they might rough her up.
The husband was convinced we needed to seize the moment and bring Noelle for a visit, so I fetched the harness and we spent the next half hour trying to get it on her. I have never had a mule, but "Stubborn as a cow" seems to be an appropriate statement as is, "Clueless as a couple of city people trying to harness a cow."
The Husband managed to get the harness on and drag her out of the gate and into the front yard. She dug her hooves in and flopped down onto the driveway. I followed behind with a stick to tap her butt. She slowly rose and started to move. I yelled, "I need to go change out of my boots!" as the husband pulled and cajoled her. I was really going for the iPod because how could I not get this on film?
When I came back out they were 100 feet or so down the street but now it was the Husband splayed on the ground as Noelle stood terrified at the sight of another neighbor's steer. I ran after them with the camera rolling hoping I was not about to record footage of the Husband being trampled to death.
Once we got past the steer and the barking dogs, she started walking along agreeably. She didn't catch sight of her destination until we reached the bottom of the hill. She stopped, stared at the other cows and greeted them excitedly. The husband brought her over to the gate and I ran to get our neighbor. By the time I returned, Noelle was already inside the fence surrounded by some very curious companions.
The bull soon came over and liked what he saw or smelled. I am by no means a prude but it was quite shocking how quickly he got to work again and again and again. Poor Noelle seemed quite bewildered and not very pleased with the attention.
Our good humored neighbor has been raising cattle for quite some time. He assured us she was accepting the bull's advances. It would seem we brought her down at just the right time. Since none of us wanted to end up 10 feet in the air from the impact of a bull's head, we decided to leave her there for a few days until things calmed down.
The boys and I stopped every day on our way home from school to check on our Noelle. The first day she ignored us and stood alone in the back of the pasture. I feared she was being bullied and needed to come home, but the husband assured me he had been down to visit earlier and she was just fine. The next day she came right up to us and accepted a few scratches before turning to go pal around with a cow who must have outweighed her by 200 lbs.
By the weekend, we decided to bring her home. Noelle trotted over to us as her friends stared warily from a distance. The bull did not take his eyes off of our activity but he stayed put. The husband slipped into the pasture and Noelle obediently dropped her head as he put the harness on. She was obviously ready to come back to her little horse and comfy barn. I stood at the gate watching the rest of the herd as they started to meander closer to the husband. The bull started to trot over a little quicker and I screamed, "Hurry Up!" He got Noelle through the gate and I fumbled to lock it in place as the bull closed in.
Noelle walked back up the hill on her leash like a well trained dog. Cody Bear greeted her with excited whinnies and she somewhat reluctantly joined the horse behind the fence. I headed toward the house with an all too familiar crampy bloated feeling. "That's why I ate an entire sleeve of crackers slathered with cream cheese last night!" Just as I climbed the back stairs I noticed a spot of blood on the deck where our dog had been sitting. "Holy crap!" The dog, the cow and I had all synched our menstrual cycles. Impossible! Dogs only go into heat about twice a year, cows every 21-24 days and humans usually every 28-30 days, but somehow the unspayed mammals on the farmette had all managed to get on the same schedule.
I am sure many people will shake their heads in disbelief of this crazy interspecies female synchronicity, but it just demonstrates the power of the female bond and how amazing nature truly is. If all goes as planned, we should have a little bovine bundle of joy this summer, and then a couple of times a year, the dog, the cow and I will share a few pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, some BBQ potato chips and a bottle of Pinot Noir while tears roll down our cheeks as Lucy Honeychurch declares that she has loved George Emerson all along.
