“You call yourself a horsewoman, but in your heart you’re a cow woman.”

So said Mr.White, one day while working on new iron railings around our house recently. I laughed but I have had fun thinking about his observation.

I recall my Aunty Bliss telling me years ago as a little girl I would sit under the fences in our cow fields with my hands and face resting on the bottom fence board watching the cows in the field. I do not remember this.

I do remember getting up on cold winter mornings, peering out the window into the dark looking for the light in the barn. The little glow of light told us our farm hand was loading silage for feeding time. Jumping out of bed and warmly wrapped, we walked in the dark toward the little light. We never felt the cold while feeding. He kept the truck cab good and warm for my twin sister, our best friend and me while feeding.

I think cows are beautiful. Watching the young 4-H kids handle those big animals in the show rings at every summer County fair fills me with wonder. They work so diligently, and the cattle are so well kept. And besides all that, I love the sound of a cow mooing.

Later, much later, in life a good friend asked me in a rather disgusted tone why do I like cows? “They are stinky and have flies all over them!”, she said. I laughed, thinking she was right—at least on the flies all over them point.

I don’t think cows stink.

We have three Miniature Hereford steers on our little farm. I agree with my cattle-loving brother-in-law, ” It isn’t much of a farm without cattle on it.” There is a bucolic feeling of cattle out in a field. I suppose as the tree is bent so it grows, and I am just bent that way.

Though I would never say cattle rank above horses in my mind, they sure are hot on the heels of them. Mr. White just may be right, deep in my heart I am a cow-woman.