The Girls Next Door

Not one of the girls next door, this cow is free to roam up and down the lane, eating her fill of fresh grass.

Our only neighbors within a stone’s throw away are the cows on the lot next to us. The first night we spent in the house they mooed all night long. It seemed like some kind of bizarre cow welcoming party. Since then, we have either become used to their mournful calls, or they have become used to us and decided to give us some peace at night.

I have not exactly befriended the girls. When they see me coming, they either turn and amble away, or simply turn and stand there with their backsides towards me. Nevertheless, I feel something like affection towards them. That is why I was so distraught several days ago.

We are in a terrible drought. For nearly two months, not a drop has fallen from the sky. Our grass is now the color of straw and it crunches under foot when we walk through the yard. On the day I mentioned, I was particularly frustrated because the cows were oblivious to my attempts to be kind to them by providing clean fresh water. It was a hellishly hot day, not a cloud in the sky, and the brutal sun was scorching everything. The cows’ pond is quite low, though there is still enough muddy water to sustain them.

I thought the poor boney creatures would appreciate a large bin full of fresh water. However, my attempts to lead them to it were futile. I also tried spraying them with the hose, but a strong headwind simply blew the spray back in my direction. I got close enough to notice that one poor creature had walked through some loose fence wire and was trailing a large tangle of it behind her, part of it wrapped around her front legs as well. I grabbed from our tool box what I thought were a pair of wire cutters, and while deciding the best way to free the cow, tested them out and found them to be useless against the strong fence wire. In the end, I gave up for the day. Fortunately, the next day, someone else (the owner possibly? a vet?) came to visit the cows and removed the wire. I really wanted to talk to this person to find out who they were and why they were neglecting their animals, but my Spanish is still very poor. Rather than get into a pantomime confrontation, I kept my distance, rationalizing my timidity by telling myself a confrontation wouldn’t help anyway.

This photo may appear over-exposed, but it is not; that is actually the color of the grass now.

It is beyond me how people can be capable of such callousness to the suffering of animals. These are domestic animals; they are there because someone bought them and put them there. That means that person has a commitment to those animals and is responsible for their welfare. Leaving them on a plot of land barely able to provide enough vegetation and water is inexcusable. It is obvious the owners do not care about these animals. The dead cow is a prime example.

Just a couple of weeks after our arrival and before the drought had really set in, one of the cows died. Close to the fence, we noticed her lying on her side. Sleeping? No. That became the first of our two odd police reports concerning bovines. Unable to find the owner or anyone who knew the owner, we went to the rural police station to find out whether they knew the owner of the cows. No luck. It seems that when a cow is dead, and needs to be removed, the owners do not want to be located. So the carcass remained there and remains to this day. The prevailing winds come from the east of us, so we are upwind of the cow and only smelled it on the few times the winds came from the other direction. And it was foul. I think the carcass is so desiccated now that it does not have much odor anymore. Even the carrion eaters do not visit it now.

Hopefully there will not be future casualties. There are two young among the cows and they look so new and fresh and clean. I can only hope they will be better off than their parents. But I know that they too will experience the vicissitudes of climate during their lives.