Five Cows

five cows in a line with backs to camera and leaning against a tall lamppost that is askew.

It looked like the cows could have been responsible for knocking the lamppost / street lamp askew. Maybe they did.

As I was writing the ‘Five Cows’ title, a book came into my mind – The Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan. It’s a kind of Western where the two cowboys are hired to find a monster that has ‘disappeared’ someone.

One of the cowboys has a habit of saying a number whenever they come across things.

So if it’s cows on the horizon he would say ‘five’. His partner got tired of it and then accepted it, then got sucked into trying to figure out what the number would relate to each time – something like that.

It’s a long time since I read the book, and that bit is just incidental to it. I recommend Richard Brautigan’s books – he wrote quite a few and there is lots to like.

8 Comments

  1. Joan Miller says:

    what a lovely, whimsical image! I wonder what breed of cow these are.

    I have never read Richard Brautigan, but now you have peaked my interest. I associate him with the hip 60s.

    Like

    1. Yes, that’s the man – that’s what I associate him with, too. The cows might be Ayrshires.

      Like

  2. Such lovely photo of wonderfully clean, white bovine buttocks: )

    Like

    1. “White bovine buttocks” – an image to conjure with 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      1. There is nothing more saddening to me than seeing cattle jammed into a ‘feedlot’ standing around a metal feeder with their rear ends covered in (please pardon the expression) runnels of shite. These beautiful Girls remind me of the pastured cattle of my childhood: ) so yes, it definitely ‘conjures’ an image… ♥️

        Like

        1. Cambridge is an interesting mixture of high-tech companies, the university, and a town centre that is very busy for its size – while at the same time there are cows grazing on Common land less than half a mile from the city centre. 🙂

          Tamara supports Compassion In World Farming (CIWF), a charity devoted to ending caging of farm animals. Britain is signed up to various conventions on animal welfare, but still there are abuses.

          Liked by 1 person

        2. Mmm… Can’t put a ‘like’ on that last bit, David. I believe that “Do unto others” applies to all life forms (but at the same time with the realism that we are all also meant to sustain ourselves…)

          Like

        3. I feel much the same. I don’t want to be invaded by creatures that want to put an end to me, so I have no compunction about killing in those circumstances. But that aside, I too believe in giving dignity to creatures. The reason for behaving badly to animals comes down to convenience over compassion. I think it’s a battle each of us fights constantly.

          Liked by 1 person

Leave a Comment

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.