May 11, 2024

The grass is as high as a cowgirl's eye...

Well, really, it is only to her knees, but as it has been raining, the grass is soaked and the cows are acting up, knee-high is quite enough, quite too much as it is.

The cows are grazing on the hillside again, grabbing great greedy mouthfuls of lush clover and grass. Why would they move when farmer girl says move?

Joan lifts her head to look that girl in the eye. "We're doing quite well as we are, thank you" she says. "Maybe you'd like to beetle along home to your blackberry bushes and leave us in peace tonight?"

Joan was deep, deep in trees and bushes and grass. She was difficult for farmer girl to find, let alone persuade to move. The girl gets aggravated and starts clapping her hands and chanting "shoo, shoo, move, move" and finally they do move. They are spread out over the hillside and some of the "moved ones" drift back to where they had been... but finally farmer girl starts to see some progress. The herd as a whole is moving slowly down the hillside toward the barn.

"Shoo, Mandie" says farmer girl to a straggler who is still up to the ears in grass. Mandie lifts her head and looks at the girl. Mandie's personality is exuberant. Milkmaids must be careful when putting the milker on her as she has been known to reach back and lick an unsuspecting girl's hair (only out of love, we believe).

Mandie felt exuberant. The beautiful hillside meadow surrounded by oak trees, the company of her friends... the farmer girl whom she loves come to shoo her along.... Mandie's tail went up and she did a few preliminary bounces. She bucked and whirled and galloped down the hillside, ignoring farmer girl's dismayed gasps and cries of "no, no, Mandie".....

Cows have been known to collapse their udders when they bounce around like that!

The farmer girl sees Mandie's mood rub off on the whole herd. Cows spin and whirl, dancing merrily on their tiptoes. How horrifying! All she can do is hurry through the wet grass, calling to them to calm down, calm down. They pay no attention to her... when do they ever? Reddy, as a leading matriarch, starts bucking and jumping and chasing the smaller cows around. Dorothy, who always pleads age and years when she has to go somewhere she doesn't want to go, skips and twirls. She finds a round bale of hay that the young farmer has set out for them close to the barn and attacks it, butting it with her head. Since it is round, it yields marvelously to her pushing and Dorothy follows it, running and jumping...

Farmer girl is now seriously horrified as she sees this round bale unrolling all over the barnyard like a ball of yarn. The cows are not going to be the ones to gather it all up again, you can be sure of that!

Finally all are in the barn and the doors firmly locked. Milking time goes well, for which we are truly thankful.