Country Living

May 29th, 2012

Living in the country, I'm astounded by the beauty I experience every day. The other night, Emil and I went out into a large field looking for his cows.  In the distance at the edge of the field, the tree line was visible only as a dark, tall, mass, filled with thousands of fireflies, and matched by a sky with an equal number of stars and a moon about half-full.  The fireflies seemed to sparkle like lightening as they glided through branches, grasses and trees. The air was sweet. Eventually we found the cows, as a cluster of barely detectable shadowy masses in the night. They were each laying down in tall grass, chewing their cud, or maybe just resting. Peanut, a beautiful golden Jersey, is due to give birth any day. Her belly is large and her coat is sleek. I reached my arms around her round, warm, slow breathing expanse to feel for her calf. I found a bump on her side-- what may have been a leg or a head-- and felt it slowly slide around as her baby silently shifted position. We herded Peanut, Aubergine, Lilly, Peaches, Chestnut, Luna and Stimpy (An ugly, wrinkly-eyed bottle-fed steer) toward a paddock for the evening. My legs were itching all over from the tickle and mild scratches of God only knows how many kinds of grass, brush, nettles and thorns, not to mention a growing number of bug bites and mysterious rashes. Eventually, we hopped back across a small creek and toward home.