These dark August mornings the cows don’t come down from pasture. Milking time arrives and the barnyard is empty. No big spotted bodies or shiny little horse-chestnut-brown ones either. Not a bovine to be seen.
No Mandy, no Junie, no Heather or Hattie.
Not Zinnie nor Eland nor Bailey or Ricky. To the top of the silo to the ridge of the barn…now dash away, dash away…no wait a minute, it is too early in the year for that.
What are we to do? Milk late and get nothing done during the day, when we are already far behind from the bad weather in June and July? Or stagger up the hill to get them, in the dark, dodging thistles and late wandering skunks? Which if you take a cow dog along are like a mutt magnet, the first thing the hound comes upon to the benfit of neither dog nor stinker. (Maybe the dogs are just dedicated to herding anything black and white, I don’t know.)
I thought of outfitting the cows with their own personal flashlights. It would take a Rube Goldberg arrangement of batteries and timers to keep them on the cow and turn them on and off at the right times. Perhaps they could be fitted around their necks with collars or harnesses and set to turn on at five AM and off at six thirty. And aimed straight down the cow path (someting of a challenge if you take into consideration the characteristics of cow paths) to light their way home.
With an arrangement like that you would think that they could find their way to the barn before noon anyhow. It would be a big help.
Think it would work?
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Going Forward—Monday, December 23, 2024
8 hours ago
4 comments:
If you did put flashlights on your cows please post the picture! What gives? I thought farm animals were creatures of habit and wanted things done at the same time each day, and I would have thought dairy cows couldn't wait to be milked. Shows how much a city person knows of the mysteries of farm life. I do know about walking out in the dark to get the morning paper and smelling that oh so (interesting?) scent of a skunk and tying to see where they were in the yard.
Hi Karen, just kidding about the flashlights. I don't know why they don't always come down. Guess they are like kids and like to sleep late sometimes. This morning they were slow coming down because there was a new calf. Beech had a big bull last night. They must have waited for it to walk well enough to come down too.
I can hear the reports of UFBO's now ... glowing cow lights on a hill top ...Unidentified Flying Bovine Objects.
Oh, Lord, FC, if they start flying I am going to start wearing a bigger hat or stay indoors. lol
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