A very un-a-moo-sing crime

All the hours that Jorjie Litsch and her husband, Larry, have spent on creating and designing their yard “animals” has all gone to waste thanks to a group of delinquent vandals and their cow-tipping antics.

Tears come to Jorjie’s eyes as she describes the damage that has been done to her beloved cows that the neighborhood also has come to love. The couple own a house on Silverdale Loop and if you’ve driven through that neighborhood in the past you know which house is theirs. Spread throughout their yard adjacent to their house are six cows and one bull, including one cow across the street in a neighbor’s yard, that are made out of oil barrels, plywood and are painted black and white. The cows are complete with udders and all.

“Every single day someone stops by and tells me how much they like the cows and how real they look,” Jorjie said. “People even come by and take pictures.”

She explained how kids are constantly ogling over the cows and always stopping by to visit them. A 2-year-old girl who lives in the neighborhood often comes to visit the cows and she always gives each cow and bull a kiss, Jorjie said.

It is a much different scene now in the Litschs’ yard. Now if you were to drive past their house, all of the cows are lying on their sides, damaged and broken – the work of unknown vandals.

“I couldn’t believe it, I cried my eyes out,” said Jorjie, describing her first reaction when she saw what had been done. “(The cows) are very well known, I created them for people’s enjoyment.”

The incident occurred on Nov. 12. She returned home around 10 p.m. to find the bull and one of the cows lying on the ground broken. She and Larry were able to upright the two which, she said wasn’t an easy task. It takes both of them giving all they have to get the cows standing again. They went back inside their house and it wasn’t very long before they heard not two, but all of the cows come crashing down. Not only were all of the cows damaged, including the one across the street, but the perpetrators had uprooted a windmill in their yard and damaged it. Jorjie has filed a report with the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office.

“It broke my spirit for creating them, but I have to get back to it because I don’t want the vandals to win,” Jorjie said.

Because of the damage done, she and Larry now have many hours of work ahead of them. Jorjie says will take a while because both of them work full-time and they will have to find the time to do it on their days off. Not only will they have to replace the broken pieces, but the oil barrels rust easily and will have to be re-sanded and repainted, but they will have to wait to repaint them until late spring because it is too cold outside for the paint to dry on them, Jorjie said.

Since the incident occurred, the Litschs have been overwhelmed with support and generosity from the community.

“When the cows went down people were telling us how mortified they were,” Jorjie said.

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