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Every day on my way to and from work I drive by a farm. Well, I drive by several farms; I live in Northern Illinois. But there is one stretch of road that borders a farm with a whole mess of cows who hang around outside, just steps away from where my car passes. In the morning they're usually enjoying their breakfast, clumped around their troughs so that as I look out the window, I get a big faceful of cow booty.

But the afternoon...that's when those crazy cows tug at my heartstrings. They are all over the field. Some are pressed up against the fence, staring out at the road. Some are milling around, snacking on grass. Some are collapsed with their friends, making little cow clumps that dot the field.

One afternoon as I turned the corner and headed up the road with the farm, one frisky cow caught my eye immediately. She was hurrying... running, almost...toward me, headed down a pretty steep incline. I was driving toward her, she was running toward me. The only thing that stopped us from colliding was five feet and a fence.

I get so sad when I see the cow faces. I could muster up sympathy for anyone...the old...the poor...the downtrodden...I remember on our honeymoon, Andy and I were driving through God only knows what state (we covered a lot of them) and we passed a truckload of pigs.

"Oh God," I said, looking at the pigs, then looking back at the road, trying to concentrate as it was dark and raining and we were in an area with a lot of hills. "Those pigs! Look at that truck! There are, like, piles of pigs in it!" The back of the truck had slats, so as I glanced wildly at it, trying to keep control of the vehicle, I could see random glimpses of a pig foot or an eye or an ear poking out. There seemed to be several layers of pigs, and I started to feel a little nervous on their behalf.

"Andy, where are those pigs going?" I cried.

"Nashville, I guess," he said, as they headed toward another interstate.

"Probably those pigs were going to the beach," I said.

"Oh, sure," Andy agreed. "They were probably just on vacation."

"There aren't any, like, pig slophouses in Nashville, are there?"

"Do you mean slaughterhouses?"

"Whatever."

"No, of course not. Those pigs are definitely off on vacation."

I can still see their little piggy eyes, locking with mine desperately...help me! help me!

I imagine myself pulling over and inviting one of the cows home with me.

"Come on, Bessie," I'd call, and one of the cows would rise to her feet, untangling herself from her clump. "No, no...just get in the car...no, you won't need your purse...if we go somewhere to eat, I'll spot you."

The day I saw the cow running down the hill, a couple of questions crossed my mind.

One, what was she running to?

Two, what was she running from?

I haven't really considered the particulars. But I know that someday I will save all of those cows. Because I let the pigs down.