ASPIRATION: The Mystery of the Cloven Hooves

Published 27 Aug 2020

The back garden of our house faces southwest.

Behind the house itself we have a small flower garden.

One morning, to my great surprise, we found that it had been tramped upon, seemingly by some animal, some quite large animal, by the size of the hoof prints.

The image of a roe deer came instantly to mind because twice before I had seen one of these creatures galloping along the edge of our property, making for the open field behind.

But the large size of these prints suggested something bigger than a roe deer,

because they were deeply cloven.

Other signs of the intruder were a garden light that had been knocked over

and a plastic birdbath with a chunk chewed out of it, but still
standing on its stone.

I walked all along the edge of our property but could find no other signs of an intruder. It was a real mystery.

Half an hour later, I looked down to the bottom of our garden and saw a couple of cows sauntering onto our property.

They headed in the direction of our house, with a third animal following.

Ah, so that was what you wanted – water - out of our two replacement birdbaths.

And here comes the third moocher.

Sorry, mate, you’re out of luck. Don’t they give you water to drink at home? We only put water out for birds!

Now look what you’ve done.

Round and round we go!

Is there really no water left?

Not a drop!

What shall we do now?

What's he staring at?

These three got to the road out front, while one of them seemed to contemplate setting off for pastures unknown.

No place to go and not much to munch.

But then the three of them set off at a gallop over the field across the road.

Now a few humans began hurrying and scurrying about, but nothing of the ungulates was seen any more and the day eventually faded in a serene sunset.

And all that was left of the ‘mystery’ was a simple question: how had a cow crunched a chunk out of a plastic birdbath without knocking it to the ground.