Cows

The Meaning and Management of Milk

‘Never a slave before been who didn’t a cruel crack find freedom’s love on the shoulder,’ said the Wise Old One, the wisest of us all before she went away, as we all hope to one day.

Off to greener fields, better pastures, and pure peppermint air. Off to miles and miles of honeysuckle mornings and lazy days that dawdle in the hills and hedge groves where the flies are banished or too polite to bite and the sun caresses your flank with tender care and reflects in your big brown eyes.

Oh, let’s lie down. Oh, let’s lie down and soak it all up for no one will shout or crack the stick. We’ve paid our dues and given our fill and instead of giving we deserve to take a little. And no more milk or milking. And no more milk or milking.

But such is not for now, nor for the morrow.

And there they all are. All the good girls. Dolly, Daisy, and Daffodil, Deidre, Demerara, Dorothy (what a posh cow she is), Dot, Dina, and Dahlia. Oh, what marvelous colours, all the finest black, and white: what a gorgeous group of girls indeed.

And they give so much. And WE give so much. Gallons and gallons of the best, the finest. Milk, milk, and more milk. We give it all away. So much for such a long time. But it is good to give. Better to give than to get is what they say. All to that little Two-Legs.

He is so, so small, the Two-Legs. Such a small little thing, really and truly. But he needs so much. Oh, so much. It’s all for us though, isn’t it? How else would we get through the winter? How else would we have something to eat if we didn’t pay our way? Fair pasture for fair pay.

And what a wonder it is that the Two-Legs can do it all. All the million, billion bits and pieces that go into that little word that feels so big — Farm. Farm — we hear it all our lives but never really know what it is. The Two-Legs know what it is. They say he is smarter and wiser than all the cows that ever lived put together in one ginormous herd. Milk seems so pure and simple but none of us really understand what it is. Only he, the Two-Legs, knows what milk really is.

But what are they looking at there? All crammed into that tiny godforsaken corner of our field?

‘Oh dear, dear, you’re here now, and what to do and what is it all about?’, Daisy with words flying all at once.

‘Daisy dear, you will all have to move a little for I cannot see a thing. I have no idea what you’re looking at.’

‘Move, move, for heaven’s sake. Let her see. She’s the smartest one we have in all the world since the Old Girl went away,’ with mooing and a waving of heads to and fro.

‘Move, move. No not there, not that way. You move over there and I’ll move over here. No, now you’re moving to the very same place I’m planning on moving to. Perhaps if we both move a little …’

‘And maybe if you yourself move that way and I myself move a little like this?’

‘Girls, if maybe you all move to the left?’

‘The left, the left? Why what an idea! Is that my left or your left though? Is that the left as the crow flies or the rabbit wiggles its ears?’

‘The same left as from the big gates to where we eat our hay.’

‘Oh, good, great, why didn’t you say so before?’

And there it is. A thing of such we have never once seen before. There, at the back of our field, past our wooden fence and where our green trees and bramble bushes meet our wall, stood a large empty space — a hole to the outside.

‘Do you see, do you see?’ All the dears all at once.

‘Where did it come from? None of us would ever do such a thing,’ Demerara with a shaking of her heavy head.

‘No, I cannot even imagine who or why?’ now Daffodil speaking.

‘Not me neither and never could it be,’ Dot with udder in her mouth in shock and surprise.

‘Me neither.’

‘Neither me,’

‘And not I either.’

All of us there gathered around this thing never before seen. All twenty-three girls were in awe of the most amazing and most scariest thing we could ever imagine. We can see through to the dark forest that runs further and farther than our minds are made to measure.

We see the undergrowth on the other side where wild animals roam and death waits around every tree trunk. The thick smell of damp moss and wet ground and bark emanates towards us, sending shocks up our nostrils like those strange fences the Two-Legs builds to keep us safe from those things that would do us harm.

‘Should we try and close it up?’ asks Daisy and all the girls agree.

‘Close it up? Why? Straight away?’ I say to them all.

‘Well, it’s really none of our business, is it? Out there, the big bad world?’ Deidre retorts.

‘And the Two-Legs may be angry and crack one of us, or maybe even all, with that big stick he has,’ Daffodil with head up and down.

‘And the Two-Legs knows what’s best,’ Dot with a start.

‘And we have so much to eat here.’

‘And is the outside not full of dirt and disease?’

‘And full of danger?’

‘And what could ever be so good in that ghastly wood that could rival those great green pastures we all go to when the Two-Legs says it’s time?’

‘And to serve is to survive.’

‘To be free is to die.’

‘And I do so love those special times when the Two-Legs make my coat look oh so bright and shiny,’ Dahlia piping in.

‘And is it not true what they say about freedom?’ Dolly looking at me.

‘And what is it they say?’ I turn to her.

‘The Good Old Girl said, well, freedom, it hurts doesn’t it?’

‘Maybe it does.’

‘Well then, why would we want it? Whatever it is, if it hurts?’

‘I’m not sure. But maybe that’s not all that the Good Old Girl meant. She never once said it was bad, freedom or the outside world. Just that it could hurt. We feel pain here too, do we not?’

‘Oh, that’s not the same. That’s just part of surviving. To serve is to survive. And if we work hard and pay our daily pasture for long enough, we all go the Great Green. Coming and going as we please. No more milk, no more milking, no more flies, just green fields and long days with a big happy sun overhead.’

‘Yes, I know, Dolly. I know our stories. But maybe they’re just the things we tell ourselves about ourselves. Or maybe even the Two-Legs told us, or some of us, a long time ago, and he told it in the right way to make us believe it.’

‘What if he isn’t the wisest creature of all? What if he isn’t the only one who knows how to manage farms? Or the only one who knows the real value of milk? Maybe he doesn’t deserve everything he gets. Maybe he takes too much from us and shouldn’t take anything at all. I think the Good Old Girl meant more than we understood. If she were here at this very moment, well, I think she may even walk through this hole.’

‘Oh, the Great Green, have mercy on her for she knows not what she says,’ the herd in unison.

‘Bless her udders, bless her udders,’ with mooing and snorting and heavy heads shaking this way and that.

‘Too much, this is too much to take, in all at once.’

The girls are in a deep state of panic. I have scared and shocked them to their core. The larger part moves off, bumping into one another bellowing and snorting in bewilderment and deep agitation.

Dolly moves cautiously towards me.

‘We cannot stay beside this thing any longer. The girls are too afraid. I am afraid. I am not strong enough to support you. You are a smart girl. If you decide to go through it, please please be careful. Don’t let anything happen to you. And if you want to come back, for the sake of the Great Green, don’t let the Two-Legs see you.’

‘Thank you, Dolly, thank you. I think maybe there’s more to a cow than her milk.’

‘Please, no more.’

Dolly rushes off to join the others. The herd has gone and I am left alone.

I look at this empty thing that feels so full. On one side are our brambles and the trees we know so well. On the other live unknown things that do unknown things in unknown ways. On one side is our field. On the other, the fieldless beyond.

I am being dragged forward. From milk to more than milk, or maybe less than milk. Maybe I am walking right wilfully into death and pain and all those wild things that are waiting around every corner to wrestle down a hapless cow to devour her whole and … or maybe I should just go through and find out how it feels. Forward I step. Again one more. Birds chirping, the smell of soil, and a cool blanket of shade.

I am now not in my field. For the first time ever. Not in the field. I turn and look back. From here I can see how our field slopes upwards, fenced off by brick and bramble with a farmhouse overhead looking down. There, our world, oh so small.

looks much smaller and much scarier than I ever knew. It is scary here too, but I move a little deeper.

Beneath my hooves break twigs but the ground feels full and firm; my nostrils twitch and flutter with the clumsy excitement of a newborn calf taking its first steps. Freedom may be a cruel crack to the haunches of any cow, but perhaps a little pain and struggle when you’re making your own way in the world make it all worthwhile. Is a cow only her milk and is the Two-Legs the only one who knows what it all means?

And then the sound. That sound. The Two-Legs calling and the scream of metal monsters roaring and gnashing their teeth. He’s calling and calling and maybe … I have not gone so far, maybe I could go back without him seeing, back to all the others? And the Great Green will be my reward, and pasture for pay, and milk and safety, and to serve is to survive, and the Great Green and our little field.

And we could just forget it all — holes and empty spaces, and sensations that make me go all wobbly and shoot electricity up my spine, and how the field looks from the forest, and big words that bang around my head and turn the world upside down. Forget it all.

And maybe. And maybe.

Or maybe take a few more steps in this direction. Down this path and deeper into the wood. Who knows, I may meet other cows. Or other animals? And maybe they’re not all bad? And maybe the Two-Legs don’t know all there is to know? And maybe life’s not only about milk?

And freedom may be a cruel crack but it’s for me to find out what that means and how that feels on my own back. Perchance, there are others and we will create new stories to tell ourselves. And cows can be masters of their own milk and decide what it all means for themselves.

Perhaps, maybe. Let’s get going.