Harridan Alley
“Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!”
Early in Wednesday evening’s adventure at South Boulder Creek West, D announced that he had learned a new word: harridan. Naturally, S and D immediately designated this the “BNO Word of the Day” and commenced, with some jocularity, to contrive various sentences and situations in which this word could be used.
Later, as fate would have it, an opportunity would arise to use the word without any contrivance whatsoever; but patience, dear Reader, that time is yet to come.
The adventure began calmly enough: ‘twas a mild afternoon in Boulder, around 3:30pm. Not many people out and about; it was a workday, after all. Our fearless adventurers undertook the westward march, toward the setting sun, and certain inevitable doom.
Along the way, plenty of dry grass and rocks. Some cows. More rocks. Some picturesque cirrus clouds hovering above the Flatirons. Not many birds.
Gate 1, about 20 minutes up [1]. These gates have chains looped around their fenceposts, which, as we’ve mentioned previously, help to keep the cows at bay. So to open the gate, you un-loop the chain from the post, open the gate, pass through, close it, and re-loop the chain. (Seems obvious, but not, thankfully, to cows).
Gate 2. Trail a bit steeper, rockier. Still not many people. More cows, grazing very close to the trail.
Gate 3, about 3km up. This was the terminus, the designated destination. Cows here and there, grazing in silence. No mooing.
One cow in particular had poked her head through the barbed wire fence, and was munching the grass on the other side. There was some speculation as to why one would bother munching this other-sided grass, which was not discernibly greener. Also some speculation that the cow, if not careful, could poke her eye on the barbed wire. S noted that cows are experts at feeding between fence wires, and probably don’t poke their eyes very often. D was skeptical.
Some scoffing and harrumphing, and then the conversation morphed into a discussion about the app “Emerald Chronometer,” which, alas, is being removed from the App Store in mid December. Sic transit gloria mundi.
During this innocuous discussion, the aforementioned trans-wire-feeding cow had moved stealthily closer. One would think our fearless adventurers would notice such a large thing as an approaching bovine, but you know, they were talking about computers and clocks and stuff. And therefore, oblivious.
Suddenly the cow began smacking her hornless head against D’s titanium-reinforced shoulder. Apparently she had munched all the grass on the western side of the fence and was heading toward greener pastures south; our intrepid explorers decided not to tell her that those greener pastures were at least 500 miles away.
Instead, they unhooked the chain from Gate 3, walked through, and re-hooked it, much to the consternation of the cow, who pondered the fence and remembered she had eaten all the reachable grass on the west side. And so she continued her southward amble, across the trail, and resumed munching.
At which point our fearless (and learned) adventurers almost immediately denounced her as a harridan.
Alas, so it goes: an evening nearly ruined by a head-butt, yet saved by the power of vocabulary. Imagine if this word had not been instantiated as Word of the Day! Dear me, the east-bound descent would surely have been punctuated by grumbles, guffaws, and grand gesticulations! Instead, only chuckles and pleasantries about harridans ensued. Let’s all be grateful that someone in 1678 had bequeathed this strange word to the English language, whereupon 345 years later a hapless, fence-challenged bovine, innocently wandering the midwestern prairie, would be labeled as such, thus salvaging the moods and narratives of two somewhat intrepid explorers.
Meanwhile, as the yipping songs of nearby coyotes chorused over the field, a herd of deer wandered contentedly on the west side of Gate 3, browsing as much of the high-quality grass as they wanted, their eyes twinkling in the fading light of the crescent, setting moon.
Notes
Actually it’s the second gate, but of course, being computer nerds, we designate the first “Gate Zero,” making this Gate 1.