NORTH WATERBORO — Wondering what happened to Wanda, the 700-pound wandering year-old white-faced Hereford who went walkabout in June?

After weeks in the woods and a lot of patient coaxing, Wanda is home ”“ she’s back in the barn and corral at the home of Sen. David Woodsome, eating grain and getting accustomed to her surroundings.

She’s wary of strangers, and she doesn’t like cameras clicking away in her face.

She’s been at the mercy of the elements, for the most part, since she walked off June 1, but she’s looking pretty good, despite her ordeal. She returned to the farm on Monday.

Wanda – who earned her name when she “wandered” away ”“ first arrived at the Woodsome farm May 31 from the James Carll farm, where she was raised. When Woodsome looked out in the pasture the following morning, before he left for Augusta, the cow was there.

“I said good, she’s content,” said Woodsome, who drove off to the Legislature. Then, things changed. 

“I got a call at 6 p.m. saying, ”˜your cow is walking down Route 5,’” he said. The caller told Woodsome she walked a mile, turned right on Clark’s Bridge Road and then walked left onto Old Bagley Road.

News stories followed, along with lots of Facebook chatter, and posters went up all over town about the missing cow. Wanda became famous.

Everyone wanted to know what happened to Wanda. He got phone calls from all over, wondering about the missing cow, or leaving tips. 

So how was she found, and how was she brought home?

This is a story of patience and trust.

Woodsome was in Augusta most weekdays, because the Legislature was in session. But on weekends, the Republican senator, who represents district 33, would walk the woods, looking for the heifer.

She had been headed in the general director of the Carll farm. Two weekends into the search, he found evidence in the form of hoof prints and droppings. He put out some game cameras and got a picture.

“Once I knew her location, I started putting out grain,” he said at his North Waterboro home Thursday. “It was always gone when I’d come back.”

During a lull in the Legislature’s calendar, Woodsome was able to spend more time at home, and on the quest to lure Wanda back.

She was pretty wary. 

“She wouldn’t come near me,” he said, but if he walked away from the grain bucket, she’d wander towards it. Then, as time progressed, he’d stand closer, and she’d walk over and smell his hand.

She got more trusting and so a plan was hatched to bring in an animal trailer and lure her inside. But that first attempt failed ”“ he’d brought a couple of people to help, and while Wanda knew Woodsome, she didn’t know the other two, and smashed through the corral they’d made.

“I didn’t see her for five days,” he said.

Then, he moved the trailer to the woods and left it there. And he continued taking grain to the animal.

“I’d talk to her and she’d feed at my feet and I’d pat her,” said Woodsome. He put grain at the end of the trailer, and then gradually, over time, moved the grain further inside.

A video shot with a cell phone camera shows Woodsome talking to the cow, keeping up a conversation about the grain he’s offering, “the best this side of the Mississippi.” He talks about the new-to-him second-hand pickup truck he’s just purchased ”“ it’s a 2002 Chevy four wheel drive with a plow.

Wanda stands there, ignoring him. 

He talks about the grain some more, and tells her how nice she looks, and he talks about life in Augusta, at the State House.

“You’re as bad as the governor, standing your ground,” he said to Wanda, who by this time is looking straight at him, but not quite ready to make a move.

“I just kept at it,” said Woodsome. On Monday, he and daughter Kate Woodsome went back to the woods. Kate stayed out of sight, while Woodsome coaxed the animal into the trailer and then closed the doors. Back at the farm, Wanda spent Monday night in the trailer, and was then released to the barn and its adjacent corral.

Woodsome says she’s doing well.

“Dad’s experience in the woods is a total meditation,” said Kate Woodsome. “She’d been there seven weeks, and a lot of people would have given up.”

Woodsome said patience is a quality he’s developed over time. He pointed out the cow had been taken away from a herd she’d been with since she was born, and it seemed when she kicked through a rotten board in her corral and wandered away, she might have been heading back there.

“I think she’s very clever,” he said.

And the future?

Well, he’s not sure. He said he might have Wanda bred, and start a herd of white-faced Herefords.

Everyone tells him she’ll never settle, but Woodsome isn’t so sure that’s true.

“Everything happens for a reason,” he said. “My idea was to farm again. Maybe this is a sign.”

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or [email protected].