Our neighbors the cows

Between us and Falmouth there is a road which is busy in summer but quiet for most of the time. Our sitting room is upstairs so we are an upside down house which is fairly common in these parts. Beyond the road is a meadow which slopes gently down to the narrow beaches which are below the coastal path.
During the summer the meadow has a lot of visitors walking their dogs but now at the end of half term the cows are back. A herd of beautiful beasts of black and some tan ones as well. We have mummies, daddies and babies right now and they are lovely to watch as they play butting and mounting and tag.
The danger in this is that I get fond of them. I see them every day, they are our neighbors....by the end of the winter they will go to various places which I don't want to think about. The one thing I have to be careful about is giving them names. Once an animal has a name they are not just neighbors they are part of the family...
In Essex I lived by a field of horses. They were not as well looked after as these cows and I used to go out and feed them carrots and anything going spare. I was devastated one day to find out that when the farmer collected them at the end of every year they went for meat to France. It brought out the rebel in me in a big way and I had several altercations with the poor man who had found a handy way of making a bob or two.
I expect something similar will happen to these lovely beasts in front of me but at least they have had a good life here...they share their meadow with rabbits and hares and foxes and lots of birds....and even my dog Crispin doesn't bark at them any more...he just accepts them as a part of life in the country.

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