April 22, 2024

Ida Mae Goes Out to Pasture

The weather kept getting warmer, the days longer, and the grass greener. The young farmer woke up one morning, looked at the rich grass and decided that today was the day the young heifers get to go out to pasture.

Only the evening before that the farmer’s daughter had decided to move the cows from their winter pasture to another that was richer, greener, and more lush. She milked the cows, washed up, and left the milk to cool in the tank and the cows to loaf in the barn while she walked the pasture lanes to change fences. It was a beautiful cool evening… the farmer’s daughter enjoyed her sweet solitary walk immensely.

Left behind in the barn, Hunter Jumper lifted her head and sniffed deeply. What was that smell? What was that faraway sound over at a gate beyond which lay the most luscious grass ever? What was it? Could it be the farmer’s daughter was opening the gates? Could it be she had forgotten to take her cows along?

“Listen!” said Hunter Jumper, and all the other cows looked at her. Some thought she was a bit silly, but all stood listening with their heads cocked and their ears straight out, and they all heard the sound of fences being changed (which is barely any sound at all), and they smelled the smell of fresh trodden grass that the farmer’s daughter had stepped on as she changed fences.

The doors were closed as they usually are during milking (to keep naughty cows at home), but the farmer’s daughter had forgotten to bolt it, and so all the cows butted it with their heads until a slot appeared, and so they thrust their heads through, and then their shoulders. The doors might be huge and heavy, but the rollers went as slick as grease and off went the herd towards fresh green grass.

“Springtime is wonderful!” said Hunter Jumper as she trotted along briskly. She wasn’t allowed to lead the herd, of course (she was a leader in mischief only), but it didn’t matter. She was free and headed for green grass!

The farmer’s daughter strolled along, all alone and quite at peace with the world. She was startled but not surprised to see fast-moving cow shapes looming before her in the pasture lanes. “They would!” said the farmer’s daughter. Luckily everything was in place, so she only stayed to make sure every cow went through the gate, and then she closed it behind them.

There were ten small heifers ready to go out to pasture. Some had been born last summer, some in the fall, and Ida Mae had been born in the winter. Most had been out to pasture in the last summer/fall grazing season, but Ida Mae had never been out yet. She knew she liked grass, of course. The farmer’s daughter would cut fresh grass daily for her and Ida Mae always gobbled it down. It was every bit as good as milk. Maybe even better.

But this was the day that Ida Mae would get out to eat green grass for herself!

Ida Mae watched through the slats as the young farmer walked into the milking parlor. She saw with interest as he pulled a halter off its hook and started for the pen where the heifer calves had sheltered all winter long. He put the halter on a heifer who was a bit larger than Ida Mae and led her out to the small pasture beside the farmhouse, opened the gate and left her there while he went back for another.

Ida Mae stood close beside the door of the pen, for she was very curious and she wanted to know what was happening. She made no objection to the halter or to the pasture, but she missed Rita Rose and the younger calves who had to stay behind. She felt they would also like the pasture just as well as she did.

Ida Mae stuck her head through the fence boards. “Rita Rose!” Ida Mae called. “Rita Rose! Come on out!”

The farm family heard Ida Mae call, and they looked out to see what she wanted. They couldn’t quite figure it out, but they soon quit wondering as Ida Mae gave up on Rita Rose and settled down to eating grass. Grass is best fresh, and this couldn’t get any fresher! Ida Mae walked around and ate until her legs grew tired and she lay down to rest… but even then the grass was too good to leave, so she stretched out her neck and kept on eating. She knew the farm family was laughing at her, but she didn’t care a bit.

“If I’m silly, then they’re silly too!” said Ida Mae, and she was right, for what was the farm family doing while they were laughing at Ida Mae but sitting down to lunch themselves?