Mooo...

 My west coast brother has informed me that today is "Cow Appreciation Day."  I do appreciate cows and this give me the opportunity to share two of my favorite cow stories.

When I was eight years old my parents moved from our cute little house in New Haven (only one half block from the candy store) to a five acre 'farm' in the country near Woodburn, my father's home town.  Our five acres was the corner of an 80 acre farm, with an old house - a never ending fix up project - a garage, two chicken coops and an apple orchard.  Adjacent to the driveway side of our five acres was a fenced in pasture area and an old barn.  When we first moved there, my uncle, who farmed that land and two other farms for the owners, kept some cows in that pasture.

When we moved there our dachshund Fritz moved with us.  He was a city dog, but very curious.  On the first day we were there he got into the pasture and raced up barking to the first cow he saw.  The cow looked down at him, obviously annoyed, and said MOOO! in a no nonsense way.  Fritz high tailed it back to the house and never ventured into the pasture again.

For some reason one of the cows liked me and I liked her.  I called her Daisy.  She was all brown with big beautiful brown eyes and a big black tongue.  She would come to the fence when I walked up to it and happily eat the grass that I picked for her from my side of the fence.  I guess the grass really was greener on my side.  I used to wonder if I could ride her but never got up enough nerve to try.

 Eventually all of the cows were moved out of that pasture, and that was the end of my personal association with and appreciation of  cows.  I think it was after some of them got out onto the road in the middle of the night and my father had to round them up.  My father was a skilled carpenter.  He had not moved to the country to be a cow herder.  He got my uncle to agree that the old fence just wasn't secure enough and the cows were moved to other greener?? pastures.

Then my folks started raising chickens.  Cows are nicer.