Young cows in the field

I work up early this morning with a lot on my mind. We went to early Mass so we could head up north to be with my son and his family. My wife had volunteered her services with my son, his wife and our two grandsons at a 4-H food booth at a big flea sale in nearby fair grounds. With the five of them busy at the food both that left my seven year granddaughter to work around the market picking up honey candy and bracelet for her and sox, plants, garden ornaments for myself.

After roaming the flea market the two of us headed for my son’s house. After watching some of the Milwaukee Brewer’s baseball game on TV and resting we wandered over to the dairy farm across the road. There we found the young cows roaming the pasture, the milking cows in their barns, the very young in their pens, and the pregnant cows in another barn. Cows were everywhere on this dairy farm and a truck pulled up to take the fresh milk to a cheese factory.
In India the cows are sacred, some ‘wild’ cows are left alone to wander where they want and other cows are used for milk, medicine and the most precious gift of all cow dung. Cow dung has many purposes but the most useful one is to let it dry out, let worms eat it and make castings, worm poop from cow poop compost.

There is something about cows that slows one down and provides a more earthly view of the world.

After watching some more baseball on TV we started to take a walk back of my son’s house toward his ‘hops’ farm in the back. I had brought my son five bags of my own homemade castings to put around five of his poles on which the hops grow. I noticed he had a pile of matured cow poop mixed with straw on his land. While I was walking back there my wife called to say they were finished working and would meet us on a nearby restaurant. I asked her to put my son on the phone and told him that I had left the five bags of castings outside his door and if it was okay to take a few pales of cow dung back for compost pile. He said yes, we took some and headed for the restaurant.

As my granddaughter and I were driving over there we made up jokes about the ‘poop’ in the truck. I have found that young people from three to eighteen find the word ‘poop’ funny in almost all context. I joked with my granddaughter about not telling her grandmother, my wife, that we had pales of cow poop in the truck of her car. Although dried up poop mixed with straw did not smell she thought it was a funny secret to keep. I promised not to tell her mother about our ‘poop’ joke session, knowing she did not approve.

Naturally my granddaughter was itching to tell grandma about the cow dung in the trunk of her car. She kept asking me for permission. I said it was not good to talk about at a meal. After we were done eating she asked if now she could tell. I said yes and she did. My wife was not surprised because she knew my son had given me permission to take some manure but she acted surprised to the delight of my granddaughter.

The lesson of the day is that when you wake up with lots on your mind just have a slow mooving day with a child and all will be well. (Check out the Gandhi cow picture quote below.)

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