Cows

I don't know what it is with me and cows. Perhaps it has something to do with my growing up years in Kansas. We always had at least one cow for milk and butter, and when I was a teenager, we had a mini-dairy. I helped with the chores including milking the cows. Lessons learned from those days: never try to milk a cow with too-long fingernails or icy hands, and keep your face turned away from that flipping tail, potentially filled with ice shards in the winter, or something worse year around. One good thing, while milking, the flank of a warm bovine is nice to press one's cold forehead into. Memories of the cold winters seem to be the strongest.

An encounter of sorts with a Brahman bull in my preschool years left me with an overpowering respect for them. My daddy was a pumper for an oil company and we lived on the wide open prairie which was also open range for cattle--no fences between road and animals. This geographical area was called the Flint Hills, and the native grass was excellent for fattening cattle because of the nutrients it gained from the flint soil.

This was in the 30s, you must realize, which meant rural roads were scarcely distinguishable from the accompanying rocky hills and prairie. One day I was allowed to go with Daddy and my uncle in our Model T. We were bumping along the track masquerading as a road and came around a slight hilly curve to discover a Brahman bull lounging in our way.

Daddy brought the vehicle to a stop, and we surveyed the situation. The bull moved his head slightly to look at us. Daddy really didn't want to turn off the road and clamber over the rocks and scrub so he honked the horn, no doubt thinking the huge lump of cow would get up and lumber off the road. The bull continued chewing his cud. Daddy honked again. After about a count of 10, the bull began to get to his feet. That bull kept rising up until, from the viewpoint of a 5-year-old, he was as tall as a house.

However, he was still in the middle of the narrow track.

Daddy honked again. I can see the scene as clear as if it were yesterday when that bull turned to face us.

He lowered his head.

Then he began to paw the ground.

He began to toss up rocks and dust, with first one foot hoof and the other; seemed like slow motion.

Daddy rapidly came to the conclusion that the ditch and rocks and scrub outside the road track were extremely navigable, and we bumped speedily off into it as fast as that open-sided Model T could go.

Another riveting experience with cows occurred when I was in high school. By this time we lived on a 40-acre farm, where we had the dairy herd. Our house, barn, and outbuildings were on a hill, which turned out to be a very good thing.

One year when it seemed like it rained 40 days and 40 nights, the river that ran through our valley got completely out of hand. From one side of that valley to the other was 30 miles, and that river filled it. As it was rising, we tried to get our animals up to safety to the barn on the hill. Those darn cows were obstinate beyond belief, choosing to go every direction except where we knew they needed to go. The river kept creeping higher, and finally cut us off from the animals. We stood knee deep at the edge of the water, yelling and calling, trying to get them to come to us. A few did, and we got them to the barnyard. We had to stand and watch the others being swept downstream. We never saw those beloved milk cows again.

Throughout the years since then, as I've traveled about, I'm mesmerized by pastoral vistas of rolling grassy pastures dotted with varied colored bovines. Sometimes I toot my horn at them, if they're close to the road, sort of a "Hi! Good to see you!" sort of thing. I'm sure it makes their day, especially as they usually never twitch so much as an ear. I live for the time one of them will give me a toss of the head.

As a group, cows seem to be very contented, absently grazing along, chewing their cud in the shade, or cooling off tummy-deep in a pond. What a life! That's one aspect of bovines with which I identify these days--a permeating sense of contentment which has come to me with retirement. Maybe those cows are born retired.

I guess it must seem peculiar to a lot of people, such as city folk, factory workers, fishermen and shrimpers, for anyone to have such regard for an animal as benign and domestic as a cow. But look at it this way. Even in the oil field years, the Depression Years, we had cows for milk, cream, butter, and buttermilk. We cared for them, fed them, kept them warm in winter, and they repaid us by all the good things we had to eat. It took work to clean up after them, but then you'd look in those big soft brown cow eyes with to-die-for long lashes, and all that smelly shoveling didn't seem such a chore.

They still run cattle on the Flint Hills but the roads and highways are now fenced off from the animals. Should I come face to face with a Brahman bull these days, on, say, the other side of a sturdy fence, from the perspective of an adult I suppose he would look only six feet tall or so. I don't think I'd honk at him.

Photo:
A family reunion at a house in the country had cows in an adjoining pasture. I'm sure Yeti the dog, having lived all her life in the city, had no idea what these huge creatures were. Then the very large black bull moved forward to see just what this little animal was that was challenging him. Yeti kept looking over her shoulder to be sure she had backup. Thanks to her tether, and the fence keeping the bull on the other side, the encounter created no more than a fun photo op.

Story ID:	376
Written by:	Carol J Garriott (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Organization:	home/retired
Story type:	Musings, Essays and Such
Location:	Madison Kansas USA
Year:	1952
Person:	Carol Garriott