Cows

4. Moving Cows! (Feb '04)

I went up to the Granvilles' this morning to pay my rent and while I was sitting having the requisite cup of tea and slice of fruitcake (I brought their mail up from the box at the gate when I came up, and one of the items was a rectangular package, weighing quite a lot; I thought it may have been a piece of lead pipe or some complex tool or metal object. I had to bite my tongue when they unwrapped the package and announced with glee, "oh, it's one of Jocelyn's Christmas cakes! They're ever so nice." It wasn't bad, I have to admit. Though on the scale of chocolate cake to haggis, it's closer to the haggis end), they announced that today was the day they were taking the two Highland cows from their barn up to Beannan and would I like to help. (Beannan is the high hill in the centre of Tolstachaolais).

They wanted both cows to be with calf ("in calf"? I don't remember the official terminology) before they put them out to pasture and they just had the vet round to check their status. It's a very high-tech procedure, wherein the vet inserts his or her hand into a specialized instrument (called a "rubber glove") and reaches into the cow and feels around for any lumpy things. Luckily I wasn't around for that procedure. Unluckily -- for the Granvilles at least -- no lumpy things were found in either of the cows. But's it's too late in the season to call the bull back and dress the cows up in sexy heifer lingerie and try again, so they just put them out on the hill "empty."

There are already two young bulls up on the hill (too young to have a go at the cows), a black one and a red one; and another cow, a white one (well, she's off-white; it's hard to keep your coat clean when you live on a hill. And have no hands). The two that have been living in the barn are red ones. They're all Highland cattle, the shaggy haired kind with dangerous-looking horns. (the two bulls are still quite young, so their horns are only short points; they would look Mephistophelean, if it weren't for the shaggy hair falling in their eyes and their round, huggable bodies).

I swallowed my lump of fruit/nut/cake/icing and said of course I would like to help. I was given the job of "enticer." I had a bucket of cow pellets (they looked like hamster food, but each pellet was about the size of a hamster) to encourage the cows to mosey on down the road. And so we set off. I was at the head of the parade, waggling my bucket every now and then, which sent a cloud of green alfalfa-smelling dust into the air. Then Sandy, leading one of the cows on a rope halter, then Calum Ian leading the other (Calum Ian is Sandy's second cousin, and a native Tolstachaolain). Ali was in rear-guard position, riding on Samson, the large black horse. And of course their three dogs came along, chasing each other in rings around us, and dashing off to hassle the sheep that were grazing along the road.

It went surprisingly smoothly. The cows came along most of the way with a minimum of fuss. One of them balked a bit when she had to cross a small ditch from the road to the hillside. Sandy grabbed her horn and tried to pull her across, but she was having none of it. So I got to do a second job, which was "more-serious-encourager." He said to me, "put down your bucket, and go around to the back of her, grab her tail up at the top, and twist upwards, quite forcefully, then shove her forward." (or, more succinctly, "while turning hard, push"). So I did. A bit hesitantly. But I had to get more forceful, because it was a little like shoving a boulder off a cliff. At first it doesn't move at all, so you really have to lean into it. Then gradually it tips forward, then a little more, and finally, unexpectedly, moves away all at once. Luckily I didn't end up face down in the ditch. I did come away with something slightly oily on my hands, though, which I'm going to pretend was lanolin (or whatever the equivalent is for a cow).

After that all was calm and straightforward. The cows went into the pasture (the hill has a fence around it, to keep the cows from coming down to the village on a weekend and cruising the strip), and there was only a minimum of jostling for supremacy among them. The bulls lost out, I'm afraid. Callow youths.

I continued on up the hill to the summit, and had a beautiful view out over the village, the loch, the islands beyond the bay, and a little strip of the sea itself. The cold snap has passed (so have the force 7 winds, the hail, the snow, and the mild wet drizzle, in succession) and today was sunny, warm and windless. There was a brief misty rainshower, which left behind a rainbow over the hill when it passed. I had a quick look around for the movie cameras, as it was almost too quaint and picturesque to be reality.

In other news, I just finished my third week of teaching. I'm still enjoying myself, which is a good sign. And nobody's said to me, "I've decided that maybe the harp's not my instrument; I'm taking up the tuba," which is another good sign. Each student is starting to diverge somewhat (ie. they're not all playing the same tune that Alison taught them). Some have music "practical" exams for school and they need to work on their material, one girl is in an ensemble and brought in her part, and some have requested to learn specific tunes just for fun.

Last Saturday I went on a guided walk around the castle grounds. The "castle" is a mock-tudor building erected by Sir James Matheson in the 19th century, across from Stornoway harbor. Unfortunately the building itself is in disrepair and nobody's allowed inside, but the grounds are quite extensive and planted with all sorts of interesting trees and bushes. Lady Matheson had a green thumb, and so her husband imported tons of topsoil from the mainland, so she could indulge her fancy (this is why the castle grounds are brimming with trees, while the rest of the island is moorland, peat bog and machair ["machair" is the term for short, tough grass growing on sand and was the original turf that golf was played on. It's also called "links," hence "golf links" and hence sand traps which would occur if golfers got too rough with their swings]).

The walk was part of the series of walks that included the one we went on in the driving rain. This one took place in driving hail, so we stuck to the more sheltered paths, and a few less-hardy souls wearing shoes with less-hardy soles had to bail out halfway through (here's how small this island is: the family who bailed out are the people who owned my car prior to my having bought it [through Dee, the mechanic]. The father recognized it in the parking lot, and asked if it was mine).

Love and a sloppy cow kiss,
Andrea

Andrea Blumberg