The Goderich Signal-Star, 2009-05-06, Page 28Page A26 - Goderich Signal -Star, Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Cows and the contagiousness, healin
We seldom think of joy as having
power. We think of it as fun and feel-
ing good, We think of it as frivolous.
We seldom realize what joy is really
capable of.
One of my favourite things about
living on a dairy farm is watching the
cows go out. to pasture in the spring.
During the winter months, the cows
must stay inside. They have comfort-
able straw bedding to lie on, all the hay
they want to eat, and they are sheltered
from the weather. But it isn't the ideal
cow life. Cows are made to be outside,
eating grass in the sunshine, and chew-
ing their cud while they lounge in the
pasture. •
So it is always exciting when spring
• comes and my husband starts getting
all of the fences up around the pastures.
He swears that the cows know. They
watch him through the big doors of the
barn carrying fence posts and electri-
caI fence -wire. They can nearly taste
the fresh grass and the feel earth under
their hooves.
So a few days ago, I was getting ready,
to go into town, when Wayne called to
me, "Hey, I'm going to let the cows out.
Do you want to watch?"
The answer is always "YES". Watch-
ing cows head out to pasture
just fills my heart every time.
Why'? Because their joy is
infectious and you get to
see miracles occur right
before your eyes! -
As my husband ap-
proaches the gate to open
it, the cows all gather
themselves on the other
side like a bunch of kids
outside a candy store who
have been told that they
have two minutes to pick
out as much candy as they
can and they can take it all
home.
As he opens the gate, all
you see is an entire herd of cows run-
ning and nearly skipping out to the
field. Their heads are high. Their long
tails are all sticking straight up into the
air. They are bounding along the path
in the most ungraceful but joyful way
(cows are not really built to run).
The young cows who have never
been outside before are delirious with
joy. They kick their feet up to the side
while they run at top speed (for a cow),
circling the field. They are crazy fun to
watch!
But the ones that 1 really love
to see are the old cows. All
dairy herds have a tew real-
ly old cows that have been
around forever. They get
around the barn just fine
but maybe they're a little
stiff. Maybe they have an
old injury that flairs up in
poor weather. They tend
to lumber through the
barn at amazingly slow
speeds. But the farmers
don't tend to mind. These
old girls are nearly part
of the family. They've
paid their dues. They're
allowed to be slow.
But wait till the first day out to pas-
ture! This is when you get to watch a
miracle. As the gate opens, these old
girls who inch around the barn all win-
ter are suddenly jumping, running, and
kicking up their heels like a young heif-
er. Their tails are in the air, their eyes
are bright, and they have forgotten any
aches and pains that they might have
had a few minutes ago.
Sometimes I think that we are like
those old cows. When we are just clip-
cloppin' through life, doing our daily
power of joy
stuff, nothing particularly entertaining
going on, it is so easy to focus on our
aches and pains and the things that are
bothering us`?
But then when something fun comes
along, we easily put all of those things
aside, forget about our pains, forget
about who has wronged us, and just to-
tally enjoy living for a while? We think
that this release from our ills isn't a big
deal. But in many ways, it's nearly mi-
raculous.
Imagine the strong medicine that joy
must be to be able to lift our pains, our
depressions, and our problems and ac-
tually make us feel great and hopeful!
And this medicine even tastes good go-
ing down!
Imagine if we could fill our days with
things that excited us as much as the first
spring pasture. Imagine if we could just
add one new joyful thing to our lives ev-
ery so often. We could live our lives like
those cows with eyes bright, bouncing
around the field with our tails stuck way
up in the air. (OK, so maybe that's going
too far. But it's a funny visual.)
The question is "What's your spring
pasture?" What's your medicine?
For more information about Katrina,
please visit her website: www katrinabos.ca.
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