October 03rd, 2025

Look at those sweet little moo-ish faces! I kind of like cows and not just be cause they make delicious burgers!  Just as fellow creatures, I like them, their sweet natures (usually), their family orientated attitudes, how they interact with other creatures, and honestly, I think they are adorable.  

But what on earth do cows (whether you agree with my assessment of cattle in general or not) have to do with my life?? After all, is isn't as if I live on a farm or a cattle ranch, right?  There are no cows wandering around on our beaches or plodding slowly down Venice Avenue, I assure you.

The cow photo came about from the hike Joy and I did yesterday at Walton Ranch.  Walton Ranch is a 3,760 acre preserve AND working cattle ranch in North Port (so south of us) with more than 19 miles of trails (of which we only hiked 4 on Thursday - slackers!)  So yes this is the first in the long time of Photo Safari Reports!  I'll call this one the Bovine Trail Guardian Hike.    And I will get back to the reason for that specific title in a few minutes here.

First I wanted to, just as a blanket statement, say how much we loved Walton Ranch.  Joy and I hadn't visited in a few years and I'm not certain why not.  It's stunningly beautiful with a lot of different types of areas: woods, water, meadows, marshes and more.  Also, there are never a lot (or something any) other people there so it's peaceful.  And it's always a surprise, we never know what we will find and that may be the best part!

The trails are sometimes well marked, sometimes not, at times easy to traverse, other times not so much, but we had a trail map, a compass and gumption so off we went.  Here's some of the trails, just to start:

Our first enchantment, and that is exactly what it felt like, was discovering not one, but many Meadowlarks singing their little hearts out in the fields around us. We were literally surrounded by them!  What an absolute delight!

Then, as we left the open meadows and that beautiful song behind us, we entered a darker, cooler wooded area that had the largest collection of spider webs I've witnessed in quite some time!  They were abundant and silent and, in their own way, works of art:

But what about the cows?  I'll get to it!
​
Every time we turned a corner, as we crested each little rise,  each time we stepped out from around a large tree there was another surprise.  Sometimes a flower or a butterfly, maybe a flock of birds, now disturbed taking flight.  Once it was an unexpected little creek, the broken bit of fencing,  or the suddenly appearance of a deer (twice!).  There were golden masses of dragonflies and butterflies throughout the hike and every single sighting made me smile. There a small child that lives inside me whose heart surged with each new discovery:

Okay, now the cows.  About them. Every other visit to Walton Ranch that we've done, the cows were on the other side of whichever fence we happened near.  We would admire them, say hello, maybe take a photo or two and move on down the trails. This time, as it turned out, we were sharing trails. Oh my! That was certainly different and it would have been good information to have upfront.  The cattle gates were open so that the cows were free to wander as they wished.  What a great life for a cow, right?  But very unexpected to come around a turn, or step out from around a large copse of trees,  or hop across a little creek and suddenly come face to face with a couple of cows.  

'well hello pretty face', we said to the cows. They watched us quietly and calmly and we stopped to reassess the situation as it was unusual.  Neither of us is afraid of a cow, for heaven's sakes, but on the other hand, we are guests on that property and we don't want to upset anyone, human or otherwise.    Our first question to ourselves was, did we come through a fencegate  we weren't supposed to?  Definitely not.  Every cattle gate we came through merely had a sign to be sure to close it behind us. We did! So hmmm.  We approached slowly and gently, very aware that we were being observed and kept to the far side of the trail, giving them as much space as they desired.

At some point, we realized that it wasn't just those few cows, nope. Their friends were joining the group.  Hmmmm.  We stopped again.  Lots of cows, a small herd of them of varying sizes.  Some Mamas and young ones too which makes the situation a little more precarious.  Mama's go to great lengths to protect babies even when there is no harm intended. 

We were at the junction of three different trails and the cows were in the way of all of them. Decisions, decisions.  At that point we were hearing a racket of moo-ing. Somebody was upset. Oh dear. That was certainly not our intention. We had to make a choice and get out of their way, so we decided on the least cow-y trail and slowly, quietly, again as far away as possible, keeping our wits about us at all times, made our way to the shadowy, wooded non-cowish trail.  Whew! We breathed a sign of relief  a little too soon.

As we came around yet another corner we found a Very Large, Very Male, thoroughly unamused cow standing firmly across the entire trail. Thou Shalt Not Pass. Well crappola.  Now what shall we do.  You don't often hear of a person being bitten by a cow of course, and they are unarmed naturally, but they can kick and they certainly can trample if they wish.  We're talking about a half a ton of cranky potroast here. He can do whatever he likes.   What does one do in such a situation?

Well, I'll tell you what we did.  We sang.  I'm not certain why we did, though Joy told me later that she used to do that back when she was a Ranger in Yellowstone,  Upon occasion a herd of Bison would block the roads and she would sing to them.  It was instinct. Music to soothe the savage beast maybe?  Well not savage but absolutely not happy with us.  Joy started out and I joined in.  We took our time but didn't dawdle as we made our way around him, his eyes on us the entire time.  Finally through the gauntlet we laughed and took deep breaths of relief!  Nobody was traumatized, nobody was hurt, just a little singalong with cows and we each went on our merry ways.

Until it happened again, and later yet again!   It was crazy!  We kept coming around bends only to unexpectedly coming face to face with one or more cows blocking the trail.  And each time we would stop, then break into song and carefully make our way around them. The funniest part is that the singing began to attract other cows.  Come join the party!  Where there might have been two or three, suddenly there would be dozen giant animals, starring at us with their big brown eyes and physically imposing presence, listening to the songs.  Who knew??

So that's it,  the cow story as well as the rest of the hike. And now you too are privy to the Bovine Trail Guardian Photo Safari Report.   Hope you enjoyed!

​Have a terrific weekend!  Happy to say, I'll see you next week!