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SPEED BUMPS?
Steer clear: Cow heads keep drivers in line
Sick of speeders, farmer airs his beef
May 18. 2007 9:30AM
The severed head of Fast the steer, paired with the head of Dash (not pictured), line either side of Potter Road in Gilmanton as a sort of visual speed bump.
Urban planners are always cooking up new ideas for "traffic calming," like roundabouts, neckdowns and bump-outs. A farmer in Gilmanton is trying something simpler: steer heads laying on either side of their road, along with cardboard signs telling drivers to slow down.
Robert Potter Jr. of Potter Road said he's tired of seeing cars zoom up the dirt road, especially since he saw a speeding car hit two of the family's dogs in February, killing one of them. Last Saturday, his teenage children suggested they startle drivers by marking the road with the heads and hides of two steers they'd just slaughtered for beef. Potter said he was skeptical at first, but it's worked.
"I couldn't have a cop sitting out here and have it work as well," Potter said.
Many people chuckle, he said, including one man driving a pickup truck down the road around noon yesterday.
But not everybody's amused. One neighbor complained, he said, and another local woman called the police and the New Hampshire Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Gilmanton's police department has encouraged the family to remove the hides, but there's nothing illegal about displaying steer heads on private property, said Sgt. Dennis Rector. The SPCA agrees, said humane agent Anne Taylor.
"When the chief of police came, I said we had four eyes watching the situation at all times," Potter said. (He got little laugh for that one, he said.)
Courtine Emerson, 28, of Concord said she was moved to complain after taking her 7-year-old to visit friends down Potter Road and struggling to explain the steer heads to the little girl.
"I just thought it was absolutely wrong," she said. "She doesn't really know where food comes from, and she doesn't know that the cow she feeds gets killed."
The skinny dirt road cuts through the center of the farm, coming within feet of the Potter's house on one side and within yards of their barn on the other. About 10 houses lie further down Potter road, which a dead-end street off Stage Road.
Now, to get to those houses, a driver must pass cardboard sign chiding speeders, followed by skinned remnants of two steers lying on either side of the road, each with its own sign: "I was Dash!" and "I was Fast!" (Fast and Dash were the names given to those steers by his 10-year-old son, Sam, Potter said.)
The idea came from his 14-year-old son, Carl, and his 16-year-old daughter, Katie, he said.
"I thought that was a very clever thing for a teenager to come up with, something like that, and have it work," he said.
Ruddy-faced and rubber-booted, Potter, 37, took a few minutes from tending his 85-head herd of cattle yesterday to explain himself.
The 250-acre farm is one of the oldest in town, Potter said. The first girl born in Gilmanton was born there. Gilmanton's first town meeting was held on the farm, he said. He can tell you the names of all five people there.
These days, he raises cattle and makes maple syrup, but he also does excavation work to keep the farm afloat. Some nights, he said, the family take the cattle for walks up the road. The humans don reflective vests, and the animals get lights: two on their yokes, and two swinging from their tails.
To Potter, the steer heads are tradition. Farmers have always put heads on fence posts to scare away coyotes. And, he said, the Potters are known as jokesters. He still has the cardboard deer his grandfather used to set out to taunt hunters.
"We live on a farm, you know. This isn't the city," he said. "If you're going to live in the country, you're going to see country things. . . Newcomers come in and don't realize, this is the way of the past."
Potter said he's also troubled by speeders, and "the vehicles do move a lot faster than they used to."
Twenty years ago, his brother was hit by a motorcycle, an accident that left him in a wheelchair. Over the years, cars have struck the farm's calves and chickens. And in February, Potter said, he saw one of his dogs die after being hit in the road (the other has since recovered). He and his wife, Missy, have four children, and he worries that a speeding car might strike them one day.
So how long will the steer heads remain?
"'Til they start to stink," he said.
By LAUREN R. DORGAN
Monitor staff
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