I've written about cows once before, the big beasts and the seemingly mystical culture that surrounds them. This fodder is not going to be all that different, but my intent is to give to an updated review on what I see to be a cow and what it means to me as an individual. Since I last wrote a fodder on cows, I have done a significant amount of hiking, biking, and other activities that have given me a whole new perspective on these peaceful beasts as they graze along the road.

I have gotten quite close to cows at times, looking at them, photographing them, and wondering. Some look back, and a couple of times I've been chased by a bull. They are so big, so prominent, so much part of society. You look around in the open fields in the rolling country of the Hilltowns, and quite often you will see cows grazing away. Most of the free range cows around here are beef cattle, though certainly some are dairy. Not as common as horses, their size, color, and statue is distinctively different and eye catching.

It is hard to imagine rural society without cows not nearby. The symbolism is almost universal to think and see a peaceful cow grazing away at the grass. One vision is of the pristine wild west and the cowboys, and the more pratical one is the one we see in upstate New York of small farms dotting the highway, with family farmers continuing the tradition of their family farm.

I just wonder what it must be like to own one of these beasts, to be in control of it's well being, and to benifit from what it produces, be it milk or beef. They are not particularly bright animals, but somehow owning and dominating one must be close to a freedom of sorts. Maybe this is just romantisizing the subject, downplaying the hard work that these animals demand, but it's still fascinating to imagine what it must be like to own a cow.

Maybe someday I will find out the answer to these questions. Maybe someday I will be able to participate in this culture of bovine ownership. Even if I don't, I certainly do not want to live in a society without open space and farmland, and inevitably cows. There is a lot of freedom out here in the country, and maybe cows are just part of the symbolism.