Enmity Cured — Good Neighbors Are Made When the Cows Get Out

Enmity Cured:  Good Neighbors Are Made When the Cows Get Out

“I want to tie that guy on a lead and let him eat grass,” my dad erupted as he shed his winter jacket and briefcase.

He headed upstairs to change into house clothes as my nine-year-old eyes tracked him. He emerged from his room in better spirits, but the subject came up again at the dinner table.

My dad was Village President of our little town — a sort of mini-mayor. He took great pride in the civic projects he initiated, including the installation of streetlights and their warm yellow glow, making the town safer and more welcoming. But he was completely undone by the neighbor up the hill, just slightly outside town limits.

This neighbor had a handful of scrawny penned cows and two new handsome horses. The horses were staked to the ground by short lead ropes. They'd had limited movement and only a small ring of grass to munch in the summer season.

In contrast, our pampered ponies down the road galloped and trotted around their expansive paddock, kicking their hind legs with joy each morning upon exiting their stable. They were richly fed, had routine farrier visits, and were brushed, ridden, and talked to daily.

The dinner discussion revisited my dad’s angst.

“Animal control won’t do anything, and he’s out of village jurisdiction. I just feel so sad for those poor animals. Horses are meant to run, not to live in a four-foot circle their whole lives — especially in the cold Michigan winter, without a barn at night. It grinds my gears! I want that guy to try sleeping in the snow all night.”

As we retreated to bed that evening, I pictured the horses up the road, their fur icing into the packed snow under their cold, shivering bodies. I gasped when realizing in my mind’s eye that the leads were staked across the yard from each other, so they wouldn’t even be able to share body heat to survive the freeze.  At some point, I drifted off to sleep.

“Girls, hurry — get up!” my dad called, holding our winter coats in his hands. “Get your boots on, fast!”

I was still half-asleep, tangled in my nightgown, when he shoved my winter coat into my hands. Outside, the air bit through the seams before I’d even made it down the porch steps. As my sister and I followed him, running up the hill through the pounding snow, my father’s flashlight sliced the dark like a warning beam. “The neighbor’s cows got out,” he said, already half out of breath. The words held no judgment, only urgency.

We ran after him, our nightgowns flapping in the frozen wind, hoods tied tight under our chins as we ran up the hill toward the neighbor’s place.

The single-wire electric fence that had penned in the cows was down, and several cows were lingering in the field across the road. My dad and the neighbor talked strategy.

“If we flank them from the tree line on the left, the girls can shout and wave their arms on the right. The cows will move in our direction, and the girls can come from behind to prevent retreat.”

We listened as our noses burned with the sting of freezing temperatures and our faces stung from the pelting sleet. We stomped through the snowdrifts, chunks of snow entering our boots mid-calf and melting into freezing puddles of slush at our feet.

We shouted, raised our arms, and drove the cows toward the men, who then pushed them toward their pen across the road. After much maneuvering, all cows were finally penned in, and the men repaired the fence.

Later, at home with a warm cup of hot chocolate in my hands, I asked the question that had nagged me all night.

“Dad, why did we help that guy? You hate him!”

“Girls, I don’t hate him. We’re neighbors. We see the world a bit differently, but we’re still neighbors — and neighbors help neighbors when the cows get out.”

Spring's errand

The following spring, my dad asked us to join him on an errand. We piled into his truck and soon found ourselves at a farm being dismantled for a housing development. My dad had made a deal to buy the used fencing, and we helped (well, watched more than helped) as the men loaded it.

He wanted us to witness the grateful surprise as he delivered the fencing to our neighbor up the hill, promising to assist in building a proper pasture. By the end of the spring thaw, the new fence and horse pasture were ready — the horses finally had room to run.

Postscript

That line my dad said over hot chocolate that cold winter night has never left me:
“Neighbors help neighbors when the cows get out.”

It was a small-town version of a universal law: when something living is loose or in danger, the brick wall of grievance tumbles. You help first; you argue later.

In a world obsessed with argument, here’s what it looks like to lay it down.
We like to say it takes a war to bring people together.

Maybe it shouldn’t.

Maybe all it takes is the cows getting out — a visible need, a moment that reminds us we’re all in this life together.

Every society needs those nights in the snow, when people forget who’s right and who’s wrong long enough to chase what’s escaped. Every family, every company, every town could use the same ethic: when the fence breaks, go assist. Don’t tweet about it, don’t weigh the blame—just go.

Because that’s what holds a place together. Not agreement, not admiration, because even when we don’t get along, we can share one simple understanding: when the cows get out, good neighbors come running.

— Madonna Demir, author of Systems & Soul

Minor details have been changed to protect privacy and preserve narrative flow. All truths remain intact.