When I was a kid back in Riverton, I pedaled my bike down to the nearest fireworks stand at least once a week and spent every dime of my lawnmowing money. I then pedaled home as fast as I could and proceeded to make as much noise as was humanly possible.
Now that I’m a relatively responsible adult with two kids, a couple of dogs, some pigs, several horses, a herd of cows and a mortgage, I realize what a nuisance I was back in those days.
Out where we live now, I have several neighbors who enjoy setting off fireworks nearly as much as I did when I was a kid. The dazzling displays they send up into the night sky are nothing short of spectacular, but I really wish they’d wait until the Fourth. I personally don’t mind the noise, but my animals aren’t nearly so appreciative. We have one red angus in particular who is adamantly opposed to fireworks, and we’ve already had to rebuild the fence twice when she took a disliking to something that was going on around us.
The thought has crossed my mind to just put her in the neighbor’s yard, but that would be unfair to both the neighbor and the cow. I haven’t told the neighbors that I’d rather they not shoot off fireworks. They’re well within their rights, after all, and besides, I tormented my own neighbors every summer when I was growing up, and I was much worse than any of the folks living around me now.
After several summers of fireworks, I think that cow is finally starting to accept it. Unfortunately, the calf she had last year is already showing signs of being a chip off the ol’ block, so even if the cow mellows out, it looks like we’re going to go through the same thing with her heifer calf. We’ll see how much fence repair I need to do on the Fifth.
