by Sabina Clarke
Stormy the cow, seven years old and approximately 1600 pounds is my pick for the Person of the Year Award because of her determination to ‘follow her bliss’ in the face of insurmountable obstacles: the Philadelphia Police Department, the Pennsylvania State Troopers, Animal Control, the Pastor of Old First Reformed Church in Philadelphia’s Old City neighborhood, Scott Moser, a staff member of WB Saul High School of Agricultural Sciences and Adult Volunteer at the 4-H Club that works with Saul students — all intent on returning Stormy to her post as part of the live nativity scene that has been a tradition at the Church since 1973.
But Stormy had other ideas. On December 14th in the wee hours of the morning, she mysteriously broke loose and ran down Race Street onto I-95 and was eventually boxed in by police cruisers and roped in with a lasso by a Pennsylvania State Trooper and loaded into a horse trailer and returned to her post at the church.
Then just four hours later, Reverend Michael Caine, the pastor of Old First Reformed Church spied Stormy nudging the secured gate open and tried to coax her back in to no avail. This time the bold cow ran down city streets and headed to a parking garage making it to the fourth level.
While driving home on the expressway thinking all was well with Stormy, Scott Moser got another call from the Pastor that Stormy broke loose again.
He turned his car around and headed back downtown and this time he ended Stormy’s idyll. He fashioned his jumper cables into a lasso and made a noose to lead Stormy by the nose onto the street and eventually back to her home — Manatawna Farm in Roxborough. After Stormy’s second breakout, the pastor of the Church, Reverend Michael Caine, opted for a more docile replacement.
A few days later, we visited Stormy at the farm and conversed with her as she contentedly chewed her cud while perhaps savoring the memories of her amazing adventure and her newfound celebrity.
It is not every day that a cow dominates local, national and international news outlets and becomes a celebrity on Twitter!
By the way, Stormy’s grandfather’s is a bull named “Tornado” and her mother’ is “Hurricane”…so it must be in her genes.
You go girl!