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12/24/2002 "Helga's Cowches"

Please visit her site and see her cow soft sculptures

Here is an excerpt from a long essay she wrote telling about each of the cows living in the cow sanctuary she supports from the sale of her cow cowches......

Apple lives to eat. She got her name because she was tamed with an apple. Little did I realize at the time that she would eat almost anything. One day I was peeling an orange, and she came nibbing around. I held out the piece of peel for her to smell, thinking she would see it wasn't anything she was interested in.

She gobbled it up and begged for more. She ended up eating the whole orange. I regularly bring home bruised apples from the local orchard, for cow treats. Once they had soft peaches, and I brought them too, just to see what the cows would do.

Everyone ignored them, except Apple, who devoured the entire half bushel. Same story with tomatoes and beans. After everyone is done eating, Apple carefully checks the mangers for any leftovers, and cleans them up. When I put out straw for them to lie in, she eats some of that too. Needless to say, she is the fattest cow.

Oblainka didn't grow up with the other cows. She is an old, blind cow whose first owner was a rodeo cowboy that practiced bulldogging on her when she was a calf. Struggling against him was how she lost one eye, and all trust in humans. The other eye clouded over as a result of pinkeye.

The herd that she belonged to was pastured in a field very close to my cows. Their owner was going through some hard times, and didn't look in on them very often. When winter came, and the grass died, he didn't bring them any hay. They could see me feeding my animals, and would moo like crazy when the hay truck went by.

I couldn't watch them go hungry in the snow, so I started to feed them too. I noticed that one cow with white eyes was being pushed out by the others. She must not have been completely blind, or maybe she could tell with her hearing, but when I set a flake of hay down far away from where the other cows were eating, she came right to it and chowed down.

By the third day she didn't even try to fight her way into the main pile of hay, she just waited and followed me. That's how she and I became friends.

After about a month, her owner finally started feeding his cows, but when I went by, she still came running over. I'd give her a little grain, which she ate out of my hand. We did this through the winter. One day the man came with his livestock trailer. "That old blind cow isn't bred," he said. "Guess I'll beef her."

I asked him what she was worth. "$.60 a pound" he told me. I gave him the money, and she joined our family.

Cows are pregnant for nine months, just like humans. Eight months and three weeks later, she gave birth to Charlie!

Cows have an extremely strong maternal instinct. They really love their calves, a lot. I knew that Oblainka must have had at least nine or ten calves already, and that they had all been stolen from her, so I was happy for her that she was able to keep this last one.

She was determined to keep him, too, unaware that he wasn't in danger. For the next six months, if anyone except me came into the pasture she would position herself between Charlie and the intruder, head down, ready to charge, pawing the ground and throwing clods of dirt high into the air with her hooves.

Somehow she communicated to him that he was not to trust any humans, and he didn't let me touch him until he was three months old, even though she continued to eat out of my hand every day. Eventually she let him share the grain she was taking from me, and soon after that he decided that being scratched all over felt wonderful.

Oblainka still worried though, and would jump up the moment I entered the shelter, nudging Charlie to get up too, and be ready to run, if necessary.

As Charlie got older, she became less alarmed, and would let me move about the other cows without getting up, provided that I didn't come close to her and her son. The breakthrough came when Charlie was just over a year old. I came into the shelter late one night, to check on the cows before I went to bed. Oblainka and Charlie were lying down in a back corner.

I could hear that there was something wrong with her breathing. It was very loud and wheezy. I moved closer, slowly, so as not to disturb her. When I got right next to her and she didn't get up, I was sure that there was something seriously wrong. Pneumonia, I thought. Kneeling by her side, I tried to listen for the tell tale gurgle in her wheezing.

Then she woke up, and the terrible wheezing stopped. Oblainka had been snoring! When she sniffed me, and stayed lying down, I knew that at long last she trusted.

Every cow has a story . . . a number of stories. Not just mine, but each one of the billions and billions served. Every pot of beef stew was once a cow-person. Please think about it before you decide what to have for dinner.

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