If you ever visit the main barn, you may notice something strange- the water spigot is locked shut. Why is that? It’s a very funny story looking back on it but wasn’t very funny when the incident happened!

Marigold is a super smart cow. She watches everything anyone does around the barn. If you’re cleaning it out, she’s standing to the side watching- working in the garden, she’s right by the fence hoping you’ll toss her something to snack on- she’s almost figured out a latch to a door in the barn- and she also knows how to turn on the water spigot!

Of course, I didn’t know about it until she flipped the handle up one night and nearly ran our well dry!

It all started around 1:30 early one morning. The well pump was running but it wasn’t drawing any water up. We turned the power off to it so it wouldn’t burn out and flipped the breakers for the water heaters. Figuring it was just having one of it’s moments (the pump is 25+ years old and has it’s quirks), it would probably be fine after being off for several hours.

6am rolls around and all is normal (other than having no water!) until I walk out in the barn to take care of Marigold. The concrete walk by the water spigot is SPOTLESS- looks like someone has pressure washed it, the water trough under it is full to the brim and the handle on the spigot is ALL THE WAY UP!

Have you ever had one of those moments where you get light headed because you’re so shocked? I was probably white as a ghost standing there looking at it- absolutely flabbergasted! Marigold is standing not far off looking at me with concern. It all hits me like a ton of bricks- Marigold could have cost us our water source and pump with this antic! I have a mild panic attack because we still don’t know if we’ll have water when we turn the power back on to the pump! Who knows how long it had ran before we heard it running non-stop. It could have easily been 4 hours!

The story ends well because when the pump is turned on around lunchtime, we have water again (dodged a bullet there) and the water spigot was promptly locked so she can no longer turn it on. I still have anxiety about the whole incident and it’s almost been a year since it happened. I don’t leave the barn without checking to make sure the handle is locked shut, and often I find myself checking it multiple times because she is a sneaky, smart cow.

To beat it all, not long after this incident, she figured out how to open the latch on the feed stall door. It opens out instead of in like the rest of the doors so not only did she open it, she broke the door down getting in there!

Stay tuned for another story (hopefully next week!)

Amanda 🙂