MADONNA

We have a friend, a boy we met when he was 7-years–old. Being a townie, he loves tramping in the woods, finding disgusting souvenirs to take home. If he finds something so repulsive that it flips my breakfast over in my gut, you can bet he’s going to stick it in his pocket. He’s almost 18 now, and over the past 11 years, he has cajoled us into some adventures we might otherwise have missed.

When he was 10, he and I were walking on the edge of a bog on our south fence line. We came to a spot filled with something akin to chocolate pudding, so he reached right in and extracted a cow skull. A gold brick would not have been greeted with more delight.

He handed me the skull and dug a little deeper. Walla! Ribs. Lots of ribs. WooHoo! A femur. Hot dog! An iliac crest. We both ended up knee deep in that black brew and exhumed an impressive pile of bones.

Soon he had me hiking home in 90˚ heat to get shovels, a tarp, and a wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow could only go half way to the site of the dig because the field was so rough, so we carried everything the rest of the way.

Hours later, we had a pit any anthropologist would be proud of, and we had harvested several wheelbarrows full of bones. You simply have no idea how many bones it takes to make a cow. Apparently it’s in the neighborhood of 220. We were up to our coccyges in bones.

By evening, we were ready to go home, so we dragged the last tarp-full back to the wheelbarrow. We were impressed with the weight of those bones; suffice it to say,  I will not be taking up cow tipping any time soon. We were covered with black bog juice and red welts from head-to-toe mosquito bites. The wheelbarrow was piled high and hard to navigate through the mounds and divots of the field. Every few feet we’d stop to pick up a radius or patella that had slid off Mt. Osseus.

My husband was home from work and stood on the deck, peering into the field like someone in the desert pondering a mirage.

Over the next few months, we washed those bones, bleached those bones, read about those bones. We even bought the Visible Cow Kit to practice. Turned out that was much harder to assemble than an actual cow.

We hauled 12 big boxes of bones across the state to Iowa State University. At the large animal hospital, they graciously allowed us to take over a hallway, spreading our bones all over the floor. They had a cow skeleton in a glass case and we took pictures, made notes, and numbered our bones. You may think you can identify bones, but when the tendons and cartilage are gone, it’s not that easy. Bones don’t articulate as neatly as freight cars coupling together, not without the cartilage. But we made good progress in Ames, and we left only one Hawkeye sticker for the Iowa State folks to find.

After about 6 weeks, it was clear we had a bigger project on our hands than we’d anticipated. NASA big. And then our task was complicated by a discovery: there was a 3^rd scapula. Nobody, truly nobody, has 3 scapulae. (If you have more than 2 shoulder blades, please leave a comment below.) It was clear that this cow had wandered into the bog following its calf, possibly trying to rescue its sinking baby.

When we discovered the 5^th scapula, we were in trouble. 5 divided by 2 is more than 2. And this one was soft and very small. We had ourselves a fetal calf, folks. A pregnant cow with a small calf––what else could we possibly name her but Madonna?

It took drills, screws, wires, electrical ties (which can solve any problem), and E6000 glue. And it took all summer. We found we were missing two bones. Our farmer neighbor said he’d buried a bunch of cows in his pasture, but that seemed like a bit of a crapshoot. Sure enough, our little friend dug about an inch deep and on his first try, he hauled out the femur and the rib we were missing. That will never happen again.

We had a grand unveiling. Madonna was hanging on our deck, suspended on heavy chains from the upper deck. She wore a string of pearls and 4 baby tennis shoes. A white sheet hid her from our small but enthusiastic audience. We played a tape of the Olympic Fanfare and at the climax, with trumpets blasting and drums rolling, we dropped the curtain. The audience jumped to its feet, cheering, laughing, and more than a little frightened. Our neighbor, who had hoped to take Madonna to market some day, shook his head. What is it with these people from the city?

Madonna enjoying an Iowa sunrise.

Madonna still hangs on the deck, the world’s wackiest wind chime. Every summer she hosts nests of baby sparrows in her eye sockets, sinuses, and pelvic girdle. So far no Cowbirds have felt the call, which truly would make my life complete.

She had to go in for repairs this year, which meant a death-defying trip to the basement. She is extremely heavy and doesn’t go around those corners in our stairway very well. But after a little orthopedic work and a good bath, she is one boss bossy.

As we prepare to move, we face a difficult issue: who gets custody of Madonna? Not too many bidders so far. Our backup plan is to hang her in the woods and always wonder how long it took for the new owners to discover her.

Meanwhile, building Madonna will go into that file called “Glad I did it, but never again,” right between surfing and getting a tattoo.

For more on cow skeletons:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/950700/cow-skeletal-system