SASKATOON – Four months ago Archie Ashbacher placed an ad in The Western Producer offering a $2,000 reward for the return of Molly the milk cow.
Since then his phone has been ringing off the hook – not with information leading to the whereabouts of Molly, but with requests for interviews.
The story of Molly the missing milk cow has been broadcast everywhere from The Western Producer to CBC radio in Toronto. The latest addition to Molly-mania is a poem by cowboy poet Thelma Poirier that she read to great acclaim in front of a crowd of 700 at Agribition in Regina.
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Ashbacher had no idea his ad would create such a stir.
“I absolutely didn’t think that I was going to get a call from The Western Producer or all these other TV interviews or this kind of stuff.”
The Hoosier, Sask. farmer figures the media picked up the story because he included Molly’s name in the ad and added the line, “she will be homesick.”
The ad was designed to be humorous, but by no means was it intended as a joke. Ashbacher genuinely misses Molly and that’s what caused Poirier to pick up her pen and write her poem Pasteurized Milk.
“It doesn’t exactly have a happy ending yet, but I sure wish somebody would tie a big red bow on Molly and lead her up the lane on Christmas day to Archie’s house,” said Poirier in a pre-yuletide interview.
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Ashbacher ran this photo of himself and Molly in the original ad.
Pasteurized Milk
I phoned Archie Ashbacher yesterday
Wanted to kid him about Molly, his cow
I read inThe Western Producer
Molly had strayed off somehow
While Archie was off to Camrose
Enjoyin’ the jamboree
Molly somehow went missin’
So there’s no more cream for his tea.
He checked all the fences on the Bar Lazy 2
Came up without even a hole
An’ that’s when Archie suspected
Molly must have been stole!
Archie laid a complaint with the RCMP
Now Molly’s a cow with her very own file
Number 93 dash 1144 – Missing Cattle
That’s a black and white Holstein – high style!
Archie thought that she might be homesick
Wondered just what else he could do
Cuz Molly had always been hand-milked
Back on the Bar Lazy 2.
He placed an ad in the Western Producer
It read “Reward for Conviction
Will pay up to $2,000″
It sounded a little like fiction.
But then Molly was his favorite cow
He could milk her most anywhere
A vet told him “pasteurized” milk was the best
So that’s why he milked her out there!
Most cowboys I know fall in love with a horse
An occasional stock dog’s allowed
But who would have thought a rodeo cowboy
Would fall in love with a cow!
I hope one day soon on the Bar Lazy 2
The phone will ring off the wall
And the voice on the other end of the line
Will be Molly’s milkin’ time call!
-Thelma Poirier,
Fir Mountain, Sask.
