[Continued from post of March 22, 2018]
1. Dream Boy
I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, thought Dream Boy. Those stupid cows have gone all the way down to MacPherson’s barley field again. Don’t they remember how sick it made them last time? We nearly lost Emily, for cryin’ out loud. Emily was one of the few cows Dream Boy actually liked.
From the scent trail, they’d been gone quite a while too. And the sun was going down. It set quick this time of year, once it started to go.
He picked up the pace a bit, his easy lope becoming a flat-out gallop as the shadows got longer and the sun began to brush the treetops. He’d have to hustle to get those cows safely home before dark, and it was going to be nip and tuck at that. And Dream Boy knew exactly whose heels he’d be nipping, that’s for sure.
2. Molly
Molly wasn’t hungry anymore. In fact, Molly was soooo full she could hardly move. And she was getting thirsty. And beginning to get very uncomfortable with the pressure of needing to be milked. This wouldn’t happen if they’d let her keep her calves, you know. The calf would just follow her around all day and she’d never get this full of milk. But noooo, they wanted her milk for themselves, and they didn’t want to be milking her 20 times a day, only twice. And so, here she was, all her seams bursting.
She let out a belch. Yep, really, really full. All that barley wasn’t sitting very well in her tummy. She supposed the barley was still a tad green, probably not good for her at all. But she didn’t care. It tasted soooo good. And anyways, she had extra tummies, right? So she belched again, and began to chew the cud that came up with the belch, so she could begin to actually digest it all. Chewing, she ruminated on whether to lie down, right here in the barley field with her 34 partners in crime, or make the effort to try to remember where they had entered this field so many hours ago, and lead them all home.
Now, contrary to popular belief, cows do not lie down to keep their udders dry in the rain. That’s just an old-timey farmer joke that they used to tell to city people. City people didn’t fall for it anymore, but it was still always good for getting a laugh out of the cows. The cows never got tired of that joke. In fact, just thinking about it was making her giggle between the belching and the chewing and the swallowing and the belching. No, cows lie down for the same reasons everybody else does (except goats—nobody knows why goats do anything): because they’re tired of standing on their feet.
Molly wondered now, though, whether lying down would just be the end of her. She certainly couldn’t imagine getting up again, not without a winch. On the other hand, she was getting soooo tired she actually didn’t care if she died right here and now lying down in this field. At least she’d die happy.
So she began to lower herself, folding her front legs to lie down. She had one knee down and one still up in that awkward way of cows when she caught a whiff of a certain peculiar scent wafting on the late afternoon breeze, making her enormous nostrils flare, heading straight for her. She stuck her tongue up each nostril, the way cows do, to rid herself of that smell.
It was that pesky dog. Dammit. She was soooooo busted.
She let fly with another juicy belch, just to let that damn dog know exactly what she thought of him, obnoxious little shit nipping at her heels even when he knew he didn’t have to. Truth is, she could have taken him out anytime with one swift kick to that beautifully modeled head of his, but somehow she never quite got around to it. And maybe she wouldn’t do it today either. Today he’d actually be useful, so she wouldn’t have to figure out how to get the girls home.
Molly sighed loudly, a half-moo, really, to let Dream Boy know she was exasperated with him on general principle, as he stood there barking in her face, and then shook herself to make the bell around her neck ring, signaling the herd to get up and come along now.
Dream Boy was some pissed, I tell you, and wouldn’t stop barking until she lowered her huge head, mooed right back at him, and s