gratzee. prago. that's pretty much the extent of my italian. fortunately, one does not need to know the language of italy to enjoy italy. all you need is an appetite for food, sights, and the mediterrean sun. if i ever won a lottery of any measureable amount, i would pack up my money and nothing else and head for italy, to live. thank you wine-drinking daughter for the wonderful tour that you gave us while we were in roma.
blackbaldie
on saying goodby to a cow- actually to 4 cows
most of you probably think that farmers are just a bunch of agrarian capitalists who spend most of their lives and money spraying immeasurable quantities of poisonus pesticides over our precious trampled planet, while disgorging all kinds of dirty things into our crystal clear rivers and streams. not to overlook the criticism that all of the livestock on american farms are brutally treated and forced to eat all kinds of grain that could be consumed and shared with starving people all over the world. if you do share any or all of those prejudicial notions..., you're wrong, just blame wrong. i will tell you why. every now and then a farmer is forced to take from his herd animals that are getting older, and through no fault of their own, are suffering the slings and arrows of misfortune that seem to plague the old more than the young. i'm sure most of you have or have had grandparents who get a little "different" for one reason or another, and their sons and/or daughters must come in and make decisions that will change the way the old-timers live. "mom and dad, we're putting you in a rest home. we've decided that you just can't take care of yourselves anymore. you're not eating, you're not bathing, the house looks like hell..., in short, we think that you should be in a "home" where someone (other than us) can keep an eye on you; you know, so you don't do anything that might hurt you." cows get like that, too. i mean they don't have houses and don't have to worry bout what their kids think of them, but they get old and sometimes go from looking pretty good to looking pretty bad pretty fast. what the farmer must decide is at what point in the life of an 11 year old cow should the animal be culled from the herd before you have to call in a guy with a backhoe to bury it. today, i made that decision for 4 of my cows. they were all 11 years old. i stood by their mothers when they were born into this world (a world made dangerous and hazardous i might add not by the methane in a cow's manure but by the uninformed and unreliable intelligence of politicans), watched them grow into bovine adulthood, and decided by their stature and temperament that they would make good replacement cows for the then older cows in the herd who must move on. i watched them grow from frisky and frollicking calves to mature and docile and even friendly herbivorous mammals. i nursed them through diseases that weaken and ravage newborn calves, such as scours and pneumonia, and treated them as adults for hoof-rot and pink-eye, insidious illnesses that can maim and blind the animal. however, i don't want this to sound like i was this do-good guy who only thought of others. the cows were bery-bery good to me too. these fine ladies ( and with the help of the herd bull, bless his heart) were nice enough to give me nine ( cows don't start calving until they're two years old ) strong healthy calves, raised entirely by themselves and by the magical nutrients within their udder. all i did was provide a pasture with a fence around it. but in the last couple of years, i noticed a change in the cows and their calves. bossies didn't carry the milk that they had earlier, and their little calves, although still healthy, weighed a hundred or so pounds less than the calves coming from younger cows. Alas, the time had come to intervene. today, as i loaded them into the livestock trailer to take them to market, i spoke to them and thanked them for sharing so many good years with me. ( i always talk to my cows, by the way, so don't think of me as being delusional) i don't think they understood what the hell i was saying, but it's kind of like talking to a loved one laying motionless in the casket. it all helps to stem the grief and sorrow that we feel when a good friendship comes to an end. now before we get too tearied eye here i must tell you that this story has a happy ending. the cows were with calf; and in this world are people who buy older pregnant cows in the hope of getting another couple of calves from them. so as the cows came into the sales ring and the bidding began, up went the hands to accept the level of the bid from the auctioneer. i must say i was proud of the old girls. they meandered around the ring showing off their good points to entice the bidders to go higher and agree with the prompting from the auctioneer. finally, the last bid came in and the auction was over. the cows now belonged to someone else. let me just throw in a word or two about the cosmology of cows. they don't get too excited about where they go or who they go with. cows are much better at accepting whatever cards life deals them than we humans are. as long as they have water, hay in the winter, and pasture in the summer, and a calf to lick clean and nurse along and worry about, they are happy. i guess you might say that they know what the important things in life are. happy trails, bossies, until we meet again.
the content of most blogs
judging from the content of most blogs, most blog writers have way too much time on their hands.
blog update
i'm sure that everyone is aware of the high cost of medicine, unless of course you've never been to a doctor. i went for a checkup the other day; the doctor grabbed my wallet and told me to cough.
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