Tag: Cows
Model Behavior
“Beauty’s easy. Modeling is not just about being pretty.” Tyra Banks
When Cows Attack
I was reading the N.Y Post yesterday and saw an article about a cow attack. It said a highly aggressive bovine wreaked havoc in the German state of Bavaria after escaping from a farm.
The runaway cow attacked its owner, smashed a greenhouse and damaged a patrol car. She also caused a lengthy police chase until she was finally shot with a tranquilizer dart and brought home.
Since I literally live in cow town I took a ride this morning to see some cows and learn their ways. They seem friendly enough and usually come up to see what I want and probably wonder why I’m taking their picture.
But if you look at them carefully you can almost sense a darker side to these placid creatures. This one slowly walked up to me and gave me a look, a look that said in New York speak: “What the F*** are you lookin at?”
Maybe number 26 always looks like this, and maybe her two friends were not her muscle but just normal cows trying to kill the day. I wasn’t about to find out though and left for McDonald’s where I ordered two hamburgers and a milkshake.
Viewer Discretion
When you realize that by changing your perspective, big things can be seen as little things, it becomes much harder to worry about anything.
The Little House
“Life begins well. It begins enclosed, protected, all warm in the bosom of the house.” Gaston Bachelard
Cow Farts and the End of the World
I read an article about cow farts in our local newspaper the other day and decided to do some research. The Salt Lake Tribune said: “Greenhouse gas emissions are on the rise, global warming is becoming a bigger threat, and cow farts are partly to blame.
Methane from cows is a big contributor to the greenhouse effect, trapping thirty times more heat than carbon dioxide. To put the toxicity of methane in perspective, you would have to sit and idle your car for 21.3 hours a day in order to produce the same amount of gas as one cow does per day.”
Josh Goldman of Australis Aquaculture said that one alternative is to feed the cows a certain type of seaweed. He claims: “If you could feed all the cows this seaweed, it would be the equivalent of taking all these cars off the road.”
Note: whether cows actually fart and whether or not as one website put it, cow farts matter and could destroy the world, think carefully before sitting in your car with the engine running for 21.3 hours. I had a neighbor who did that once and it did not end well.
Abstractions
“Life is filled with abstractions, and the only way to make heads or tails of it is going through intuition.” David Lynch: Director, writer and producer of the greatest movie ever made-Eraserhead
Lockdown-Lancaster County
“You will never be free until you free yourself from the prison of your own false thoughts.” Philip Arnold
Were you born in a barn?
When I was growing up my father was very fond of the phrase: Close the door, were you born in a barn? I felt this was rhetorical so I never answered, but I always wondered about the barn lifestyle.
It must be a great place to live I thought, because for one thing you apparently didn’t have to close the doors. But we lived in Levittown, Long Island in the 60’s and there were no barns anywhere to be found.
Later we moved further East to Setauket, and in the woods behind our house was a real barn, doors open and everything. The owner was said to be insane and shooting trespassers was not out of the question so I never had the nerve to see it up close.
Here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania there are almost as many barns as soccer moms who drive like Indy Car racers. And I still wonder what it would be like to live in one. I have a feeling it’s probably cold in the winter, hot in the summer, smelly and buggy.
Of course some people renovate old barns to perfection, complete with heat, air conditioning, windows and even doors that close and lock. But I think that most of the people who can afford that were born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth. The north side of my town faced east, and the east was facing south. The simple things I see are all complicated, I look pretty young, but I’m just back-dated, yeah.
The Escape Artist
Back in march I wrote a piece called Coming Home, about how cows never come home because they never leave, and I talked about the brave ones that occasionally make a break for it just to see what’s out there.
This morning I saw one make the escape, only the second cow escape I’ve witnessed in the eleven years I’ve lived in Lancaster County. I watched with an almost clinical interest to see if this was bravery or boredom.
Daisy (she was tagged) crossed the road and instead of tasting her freedom she tasted the grass on the other side. I walked over to take a photo, and chewing on a stem she gave me her best tough girl look. But she was scared; I could see it in her eyes.
Soon a very large Amish woman came out and shooed Daisy down the road to her own farm while the other cows cheered. I’m not sure if they were cheering for Daisy to come home or to make a break for it, but it started to rain and I lost interest.
T.S. Eliot once wrote: “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” In this case it was about a quarter mile until she was reunited with her friends. I can only wonder if they thought Daisy was a hero, a coward, or just another pretty face in the crowd.
