SEVEN in the morning and the cattle are already waiting at the feeders, the winter moonlight running a white stripe down their backs. Cows know the time of day. I toss in the hay; it is a job that takes only a minute or two, but always I linger. The contentment of cows is contagious. We also have a good chat. Cows are good listeners.
There is a cartoon by Gary Larson, the American humourist, in which a cow, standing upright on its two back legs, shouts ‘Car!’ to the herd, the joke being that only when humans are around do cows walk on four legs. Otherwise, they potter and totter about on their back legs. And talk.
Larson knew cattle. Inside those inscrutable heads, cows possess secrets of which we poor Sapiens are unaware. Except that, after 20 years of cow-keeping, a few mysteries of the bovine brain have been unveiled to me. And I have moos for you. Far from being the byword for beastly dumbness—‘stupid cow’, ‘silly cow’—cattle are ungainsayably clever. They are also emotional and possess personality. A cow is rather more than a biological burger-maker, a moveable maker of milk for the world’s love of latte. Trust me.
Denne historien er fra November 04, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra November 04, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
