Butterscotch the Cow

Do cows these days get names?

In books cows always have sweet appropriate cow names names... Flossy, Bessie, Elsie...

But, my dad called them #34 or #22 or #51... or whatever number was hanging from the yellow tags in their ears.  I think they only got a name if they were a problem, and then they got a Biblical name, not necessarily a compliment... I remember him referring to one cow as Jezebel because she was mean and hateful.  I remember another that had pink-eye so bad that Dad called him Blind Bartimaeus... I'm pretty sure that any cow that ended up with a name ended up at the sale barn pretty quickly.

There was one gentle "name" that I do remember.  As he'd walk through the cows to feed them or count them, he'd softly call, "Suk.. Suk.. Sukie... Suk.. Suk.. Sukie..."  I think it was meant to calm  and comfort them.

That kind of makes me want to change this little guy's name to Sukie. :)

(I'm trying to remember, but I think the cow in Little House in the Big Woods was named Sukie.  If it's a name good enough for Pa Ingalls, it must be a good cow name. Does anyone remember if that's was it?  The cow that Ma thought she was slapping on the winter night when it was actually a bear in the cow pen?)

Thanks to Vaughn Skinner for capturing this 

photograph and letting me put it on canvas.

Original Oil Painting on 12"x 12" Wrapped Canvas
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Moo!

What's your earliest memory?


I have a very early memory about being a farm girl.  I must have been only 4-5 years old when I had the job of guarding the opening.  My dad was trying to get the cows to go into a certain place in the barn and of course the cows wanted to go anywhere but there.  So, someone had to block any possible exits that the cows might find.  Guarding the opening meant that I had to stand in a certain spot so that the cows wouldn't try to escape from that particular route.  I'd never felt so little!  I stood there, all of 40 pounds, holding a stick in order to intimidate any 1,000 pound cow who came my way.  I have a distinct memory of crying, bawling in fact.  When my mom came over I sobbed that a big cow had stared at me.  (Now, I know that the phrase "'cow eyes" means big, soft, and filled with love.  Well, as a tiny little girl guarding the opening, cow eyes were huge and scary.)  My mother told me, "Of course, she's staring at you!  You're so pretty!"  (...awwww... How do mom's know just the right thing to say?)  With a new confidence I was able to wave my stick and guard that opening until the job was done.

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