Something stirred one of my very earliest memories.
My parents went away for a weekend and took me with them. I was either four or five years old. My brother was still a baby, so let’s say four.
We went to what I guess now was a rented house somewhere in North Jersey or upstate New York, in farming country. I don’t know what my parents did all day; but there was a stone wall in the back yard and I sat on it, playing with my toy horsies and making up adventures for them…
And explaining it all to the cows!
See, I wasn’t lonely because on the other side of the wall was a pasture and I had company the whole time I was there–three cows who hung out with me. I petted them. I told them all about my toys. I told them little stories I made up (my father, my grammie, and my aunts told me stories all the time, and I imitated them). They were the nicest cows you could imagine–although I don’t know, maybe most cows are like that. Suburban kids don’t get a lot of experience with cows.
But that little bit of experience I had, I treasure.
I hope I meet those cows again someday. We have a lot of catching up to do.
Awww, what a wonderful memory!
I live just far enough out in the country that I get to meet a lot of animals. I always greet them and receive lots of replies, when I do. One person, has quite a number of goats, and when I ride my bike past there, I always say “hello goats”. I’ll get several replies, on a good day.
I think of it like this, for domestic animals, one day is pretty much the same as the next, so by giving them even a moment’s attention, I may be giving them something to break up their day, and make life a bit more interesting, and you never know when something nice might happen, like the young goat that licked my had a few days ago, or the time I picked some grass and fed it to a very grateful miniature horse.
When I rode my 10-speed bicycle alone across America in 1976 I often was along roads where only he cows were “my people,” so I would moo at them and laugh and have fun with them.
Gee, how long did that take you?
You talked with the cows. Here in the Philippines, one time I tried to talk with turkeys. Here is my experience.
Our church congregation had an overnight stay at a beach resort, it wasn’t unusual to find two extra-large tom turkeys roaming freely around the grounds. I found out that if you made a gobble call the turkeys would answer back with a gobble. After we exchanged greetings several times, they started to make their way toward me, in what I perceived to be a hostile manner. From the way they moved, and the look in their eyes, I knew they had malice in their hearts toward me. I guess they misunderstood my friendly gobble greeting. Yeah, I could tell things were not as pleasant between us as I first thought, for they started to move hastily, in a zigzag pattern toward me. Their feathers were flared-out and their raised heads were bobbing aggressively as they advanced upon my position. As I backed away, I kicked at both of them to stop their progress, but it didn’t help, and one ostrich-sized fowl flapped its wings and flew at me. Its clawed feet were aimed directly at my chest. This must have been a Ninja-trained turkey, for its two-legged flying drop-kick almost got me! It was so large, as it flew towards me all I saw were feathers and clawed feet, its bulk blocked out the sight of everything else. As that one landed, the other got ready to try its flying two-legged kick. I saw my chance; I ran to find something to fend off the Birdzillas. Why can’t you find your ax when you need it most? If I had found an ax, I would not have let a “Presidential Turkey Pardon” stop me from having turkey for dinner. I found a broom and jabbed at them and swung it all around until they slowly backed off and left. Kevin Costner danced with wolves; I danced with turkeys. I now have a little more respect for those fowls.
Lots of YouTube videos of people and cars getting attacked by turkeys–they don’t seem much disposed to friendliness.
They can be very aggressive.
Great stories you all have!