22nd February

Cows

What can be said about these creatures? There are so many current issues around cows and the Canterbury Plains, the use of our water, and the sheer numbers of cows for dairy production here. We are a dry place, and cows need water, and lots of it. It is purely monetary gain that motivates this mass farming in an unsuitable environment. Poor creatures, they are pawns in an unscrupulous game, which we are all going to pay for in the long run. 

In the back of my mind I have memories of a house cow that was kept where I stayed for a while. She was a lovely creature, warm, gentle, smelling grassy and of the summer fields. I remember leaning against her side as I took a turn to milk her by hand and the pleasure of the milk slowly filling the bucket, as she allowed me to handle her. It was one of the best moments I have had as a human being working with an animal. Companionable, soothing, and somehow timeless.

This is a long way from the sight of many animals trudging to the milking shed and endless irrigation sprinklers as you drive through the country. It looks so mechanical, without any sense of the cows as creatures, just another resource to be exploited.  A slower, kinder, co-operative relationship with cows would be so much more desirable, even if it meant milk was less available and became something we enjoyed as a treat rather than a right.