Making a Difference in San Luis Obispo County on the Central Coast of California

APPLECOW

When I was a child I lived on my uncle's farm in Georgia. My uncle kept cows mostly to keep down the weeds on the sides of the hill behind the house. Many of the cows were older than I. Most of them had personalities and names, such as Old Jersey, Gingerbread, Pinkies and Gingerbread's Boy. These cows were definitely the second humans to our family. I miss them to this day. I have many wonderful memories of these animals.

My pet cow was named Applecow. She had her babies right by our back door every year. The back of our house was fifteen feet from the fence line. We fed the babies right by our back fence and they really became a part of our family. When we walked in the pasture, the cows walked with us. One of my cousins used to go out into the pasture and take a nap lying with the cows.

One summer afternoon, my uncle who was sitting on the back porch said, "The cows are acting strange." We all came out and stood there to watch. All of the cows started moving around the pasture. The herd began patrolling the entire twelve acre fence line. They were making a terrible low pitched noise, howling and puffing sounds. Each of these ladies, their bodies so sleek and gleaming in the sunlight, was making this same terrible sound. They circled three times, like Joshua's army marching on Jericho. Then, from the far side, spread twenty feet apart, they came across the pasture from side to side. One cow was going into the gullies and into the briar patches in her path and then going straight ahead each time to the other side. This continued for about 90 minutes until they eventually found a very little calf, Applecow's seven week old calf. He had been sleeping in one of the bigger gullies.

En masse they brought the calf up to the fence as if to show him to my uncle Boyd, who had been standing up watching the event. He yelled something like, "Saa, saa. Good cow." The cows then turned and went back to grazing, dignified and quiet.

I still feel the amazement of that day. The communication and feelings expressed by these cows, really ladies, to each other and to the humans in their world can't be understood except to say that there was love in their action. O