P-A-S-T-U-R-E

The cows went out on pasture this weekend. This is a big deal. We're still feeding the last of the round bales out in the paddocks, but there are only four left and, with last week's rain and this week's sun, it should work out just about right. Pasture means chores start with a walk out to go get the cows, rearranging gates for the next paddock in the rotation. It's one of my favorite things in the whole world, walking out in the first light of a cool summer morning, calling to the cows so they'll be up and starting toward the barn before I get to them. Earl calls, "Cooooommmmme Booooosssss," once or twice and the cows get up right away. They love Earl and he means good times, grain, milking and a pleasant walk with their favorite non-bovine. It's a little harder for Non-Earl's to get the cows up and moving. I try to imitate Earl's voice, but that doesn't go over so well. Earl's voice is among his many gifts, low and mellow, able to hold a tune, and always sounding like it's smiling (or almost always). My voice, on the other hand, is small and mumbly and sort of high-pitched and can't carry a tune in bucket and would probably benefit from twenty years of heavy smoking. Even so, it's still better, timewise, to make some gently-rousing noise when approaching a pasture full of cows, so I sing to them.

Even if it's afternoon milking in the middle of summer and the farm is abuzz with activity, the pastures are on the hills and tucked into otherwise unmowable corners and bringing the cows in is a solitary venture. No people can hear me, and the noise seems to keep the cows moving even after I've circled around behind them to push them toward the barn. Cow time does not take into account all the other things I might have to do after milking, and the pace of all this rousing and walking is always slower than I want. There's nothing to be done about it, so I make up cow-themed songs to pass the time.

I have some old stand-bys: Good Morning, My Bovines, How are you?, P-A-S-T-U-R-E, Find Out What it Means to Me, Paradise by the Parlor Lights, Take Me Back to the Barnyard, and Sweet Lactation. The three-chord simplicity of Black Sabbath's Ironman also adapts nicely and every now and then I try my hand at a farm-friendly version of Bohemian Rhapsody. Nashville isn't sending any scouts, but I have a good time.

With pasture season upon us, it's time to shake the cobwebs off my vocal cords, which have only been singing hushed lullabies and Pop Goes the Weasel all winter. The grass is growing and the cows are out and I need to be prepared for the morning in the middle of first cut when my dead-tired husband will ask if there's any way I could bring the cows in for him. It'll be showtime, and I'll be ready.