One of the comic strips I follow online is Gary Larson's "The Far Side". Re-runs of its older cartoons are still very popular, both in print and on the Internet. This one, last Monday, made me laugh out loud. Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the comic's Web page.
I live in cattle country, and locals (including a number of the North Texas Troublemakers, of whom I'm proud to be a plankowner) have many (pungent) comments about cows' stupidity when trying to work with them. The thought of an erudite cow poet is going to reduce some of them to apoplexy when they see this one!
Peter
8 comments:
An oldie but a goodie--Cows with Guns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI
I was raised on a farm and I can attest, most livestock animals present as dumb as a box of rocks.
Not sure if it's truly stupidity that they display, or just that we've just bred any sense of self-preservation out of them, but the result is the same.
I kind of judge it based on what tends to happen to particular types of animals if they escape into the wild...hogs, geese, ducks and horses will thrive and establish feral herds/flocks.
Cows, sheep, goats, chickens and the like just die. They wander around obliviously until they starve, die of thirst or are eaten by something.
Sidenote: My dad liked Peacocks. He bought a breeding pair for the farm when I was a kid, but, much to his chagrin, discovered that they actually can fly for short distances when they were able to get airborne enough to get over the fence and escape.
For at least a decade after that the nearby farmers would joke my dad about the flock of "wild" peacocks living in the woods a few miles from our farm. They might be still there, but coyotes have gotten pretty bad there in more recent times and may have wiped them out. Mom sold the farm after Dad passed and I haven't kept in touch with anyone there.
Previous owner, no electric fence and the t-posts are bent where the cows scratched themselves. I put in electric fence and my t-posts have not changed their angle. I left the fence open one night and the cows stayed put. They really respect electric fences.
I just LOVE Gary Larson's "The Far Side". One of the best cartoons I have ever come acrossed.
Heltau
Rented a 99 acre home and outbuildings for my horses. Owner had cows on other acreage. I think he specialized in Stupid Cows. Came home many time to find them in with horses but favorite was coming home to find them up on the band stand. Owner also owned largest bar and stage in Austin. He would bring singer and bands home and had build a concert place to play. There were 9 cows on top. Cows walk up but can't walk back down the stairs. Called owner, his cows. It took 5 men to get those cows off that band stand. He put a fence over the stairs. I can sort cows out of my horses but I'm not tackling anything that going to break a leg on a cow.
Wow, that memory is from 1988.
I think the articles miss a key enabler for the continued migration to rural environs in this country - Starlink. For about the same cost as a fiber connection in a suburb (my current environment) you can have high bandwidth, low latency connection just about anywhere in the country. This is also huge for businesses; they can locate independent of consideration of internet connectivity. It hasn't sunk in yet to a lot of people, but when it does you will see even more movement to small towns and rural environs.
Ok cow video hurt because of laughter.
The Tarrant County Sheriffs Office has a specialized Loose Livestock unit called the Livestock Estray Enforcement Program. They come out with horses and round em up. Sometimes I wonder what century I'm living in.
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