Sone Thoughts of the Cow Culture

Iris's tiny baby is so small I wonder if it wasn't born a bit early. She acted so weird after it was born. Off sulking in the trees leaving the newborn alone in the pasture.

The breakup of the little herd must have been traumatic. Maggie's five month old calf was sold down the river, so to speak. The brown cow and her calf are both gone, as is the poor young bull that none of them liked. Iris's old calf is gone. Maybe she misses it. She was always such a good mom with the first one. I'm wondering if the half-grown black calf is perhaps a bull. He ? has cute little horns.

Meanwhile, there's hardly any cars at the farm house, and the windows are dark at night. The kids don't get on the school bus, so I'm wondering if some human trauma is at play. God, there's nothing like a writer's overactive imagination to start me stewing. I always have people at death's door or some great crisis when there is an easy logical explanation.

But I feel sorry for the cows. A herd that small is a self-contained unit, and losing 5 members must cause a certain amount of bovine anguish.

Can you invent something to worry about?

We've off to Montreal, the Paris of the north to see the big Cuban art exhibit at the Montreal Fine Arts Museum. I have been looking forward to this for sooooo lonnnnng. Something different for Memorial Day. We usually visit burying grounds.

The cats freaked when the suitcases appeared. I told them it's only for 2 1/2 days, but how do you explain "time" to a cat? Or a cow?

Be kind to your fellow creatures.

Grapeshot

The Salt of the Earth and other preoccupations

A few of my mother's salt cellar's. Pretty, aren't they? I wonder if Proust used the Limoges ones for his boeuf a la mode.

This week I bit hard on the bullet and pulled out all the leaves in our dining room table and unpacked my Mom’s collection of salt cellars AKA salt dips. 134 china, glass, silver, and what have you. They’ve been in boxes. Sold some when we moved, and now it’s time for the rest to go. I catalogued and photographed everything, documented to within a gnat’s bristle. Now packed up and ready to go off to the auction house along with a few prints and paintings and more cool that was also confined to boxes.

I also began printing Festival Madness in 100 page chunks, and imagine my horror—no, you cannot, when I discovered, 2/3 of the way thru the story, 75 pages of pure dull. So we are working on that, the editorial we, of course, we the writer. Arrrrgh!

This weekend we dart off to Montreal to see the cool Cuban exhibit at the Art Museum and pig out on French food. In other words, live the good life.

Busy as the busy little bee, that’s how doth. Prepping to bake two loaves of bread. Put up the hummingbird feeder. The Canada Geese and the White Geese who inhabit Glue Factory Pond (not too scenic a name for such a nice pond) all have babies, so we keep cracked corn in the car for drive-by feeding. No sign of baby ducks in the slough, but soon. . . . I am on a baby craze: calves, ducklings, geese and what have you.

Off to bake bread. And to create some excitement in those 75 pages. Which task will be easier?

More Cow News:

The little herd as been thinned, as we expected, but a quick count yesterday evening confused me. The two infants are there, naturally, with their moms, and Maggie is there, and the black calf and his mom Crooked Horn are there. Is that it? Don’t think I counted more. That means one cow, the bull and two of last fall’s babies are gone as well as Maggie’s December baby. Is this possible? More anon. I feel so possessive of these cows.