Holy cow! In light of current events, that exclamation might contain more fact than many of us would ever wish to admit. Immaculate Conception is, after all, one of a limited number of possible explanations for what has occurred. It’s certainly a more appealing explanation than one involving an overly eager and plainly disturbed father. I’m sure even Occam himself would consider incest an appropriate exception when applying his razor. But before I get too far along here some of you need to be brought up to speed.
Who Gets The Cow?
I can now ask, in all seriousness, this peculiar sentence, “In the event of divorce, which of us would get the cow?” I can say that because we bought a cow. Yes, one of those big mooing creatures that makes the miracle of cereal possible and BBQs so delicious. We had a cat and he died so we replaced him with a cow.
Most people replace their dead cats with another cat, kittens being so cute and all. Or maybe a puppy if they’re looking to broaden their pet experiences a touch. Sometimes a fish or a bird is chosen. All would seem a normal and expected next stage in pet ownership. We bought a cow. After some honest contemplation, you will admit this further affirms our genius because not only does this pet actually live elsewhere, and therefore is neither a bother nor a concern to us, but more importantly, when this pet dies we can eat it with a clear conscience.
To the right you see a picture of our cow. She looks like a Holstein however she is not a dairy cow but rather a beef cow. In drag, I guess. Her name is Beauty, which, quite frankly, is the perfect name for a cow. As you likely (hopefully) suspect, the kids named her but you might be surprised to know Beauty was a name my son chose. He’s going to be a lady-killer with sensitivity like that. Assuming he develops the nerve to actually talk to them unlike, say, his father who preferred to stare at them from a distance in hopes that would bring them hither.
I haven’t a clue as to why we bought a cow other than it seemed like a great idea at one time. There may or may not have been alcohol consumption involved by some or all parties involved. Luckily the cow lives at my aunt and uncle’s hobby farm and so is their problem. They are the cow people. We simply provide money to keep it fed. It’s a test run for the arrangement I envision when I pay for my parents retirement home and make my sister do all the caretaking and visiting.
Okay, I guess I do have a clue as to why we bought this cow. We hope to breed it to provide cute little cowlets (proper term?) which we can name and gawk at before killing and eating. This should be just as much fun to explain to the kids as euthanasia and cremation were last summer when the cat became ill. As the farm folk like to call it; a learning experience. We also may sell one or two (on Kijiji?) if we find we’re getting too much meat out of this endeavour or, more likely, the kids discover the truth and freak the hell out!
All in all, an excellent plan and all was working accordingly until Friday night when I get a shocking text from my shocked uncle (he used multiple exclamation points and caps lock to indicate such) stating that my aunt had just seen brand new calf suckling on our Beauty!
Naughty Girl!
This was rather a surprise since Beauty had recently been moved to a neighbour’s pasture to join their herd for the express purpose of impregnation this summer. My aunt and uncle’s cow, Carmen, was also over there to be bred. As an experienced mother she could offer emotional support for Beauty as she achieved this significant but frightening milestone in a young female’s life. Losing one’s virginity is fraught with powerful, conflicting emotions for any species but having it done by a 2000lb bull that you’ve just met in a wide open field surrounded by dozens of more experienced onlookers probably isn’t the way Beauty had fantasized about it in her diary.
Ah, but weren’t we the rubes this time. It would seem our Beauty was not the innocent little heifer we were led to believe. I think there’s a farmer out there with some explaining to do. I get the feeling he might have took us for a couple of wide-eyed city slickers ripe for having a problem cow dumped upon? Just give the bad girl to the newbies and let her be their problem.
Well it’s quite obvious our cow was not as young as we were led to believe. This is ironic since most young girls get pregnant by pretending to be older than they actually are. Regardless, even in the bovine world, there are just some limits to rules of life and even quick maturing animals do take some time to mature. They aren’t coming out of their mothers ready and willing though the reality that they are ready within a few months seems rather disturbing.
Then again, none of these cows has a strong father figure in their life? Dad is just some drifter who hangs out impregnating multiple females before holidaying alone in his own private oasis and having nothing to do with the children. Should we really be surprised then that these young cows are flipping their collective hooves at any pretext of moral standards?
Who’s Your Daddy?
The bigger and potentially more disturbing issue is, umm, who’s the father? Beauty obviously was unknowingly impregnated before she was sold to us. She was also a member of a small herd of a friend of my uncle’s. Is it possible that daddy…? Yikes. I shudder. Markings on the calf suggest that is not the case and that’s all the evidence I need to completely stop asking or wondering otherwise. Immaculate Conception for the win! Take that you lightweights with your faces of Jesus in your toast.
Whatever the case, we got us a baby cow and that means we’re off and running on our little farm experiment far sooner than we anticipated. We now have two mouths to feed which we weren’t expecting until next spring. It’s almost like having twins; or a condom break. And it messes up our birthing cycle though I understand we’ll be good to get Beauty knocked up again in pretty short order. What the hell, her reputation is in shambles anyway. Might as well just roll with it and breed her like she’s, wait for it, a cow.
As for the little one, that’s her with her mother taking a rest in the pasture. We’ve got another heifer (that’s a she). We’ll have to be damned sure to keep our eye on her considering how poor a role model her mother is. The kids have concurred with my aunt’s suggestion and named her Surprise, though I think Oops would have been funnier. And my daughter has already said that she’s not selling the cute little cow to be made into food! Looks like my aunt and uncle are going to need a bigger hobby farm.
Update: Unfortunately, after only a few shorts days or miraculous life, our little surprise disappeared. It was a fun little turn of events with a sad ending, I’m afraid.
Sperm and Egg picture modified with text from: By ScienceGenetics (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons
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