Monday, November 13, 2006

The joys of the country...

The big news at the moment is that everyone here is waiting very impatiently for Patience, one of the cows next door, to give birth. The first thing I do each morning is look over the back fence to see if Patience is still in one piece.

There was great consternation on the weekend when one of the other cows broke out – yes, there’s one who has no regard for fences. Patience followed her and for a heart-stopping moment, she paused at the top of a steep bank, no doubt wondering if she should risk her infant by tottering down such a breakneck slope, and then she promptly did just that.

Thankfully, Patience and the calf seem to be fine. In fact I had the honour of placing my hand on Patience’s stomach and feeling him (or her) kick.

There’s a lot of science here, too. Patience was artificially inseminated with buffalo and the resulting crossbreed is beefalo – which apparently is fabulous beef.

But we won’t think too much about that…

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