Cow couture

Many, many years ago, when I was probably seven or eight, we were visiting my grandmom, who lived on a small hillock.

My grandmom’s house was the third house from the right, in a long row of around 12 houses. The houses had no fences separating them. Instead, jasmine plants, rose bushes and gorse bushes usually formed a natural divider between the various houses.

The town has typical English weather, and with no machine dryers to dry out laundry, the idea was to take advantage of sunlight to the fullest extent possible.

The moment the sun’s rays touched the hillock, freshly washed clothes and semi-dry ones from the previous day would go on the clothes lines. If we ran out of space, semi dry clothes would be spread out on the bushes.

If it was a bright, sunny day, then by late afternoon, the clothes would dry and smell heavenly – that smell that’s unique to freshly washed, and sun-dried clothes.

Anyway, I am digressing a bit here. On this hillock, a local shepherd grazed his sheep and a few cows every day.

He would drive them to the hillock in the morning. During the day we would see him on and off, sometimes sitting, sometimes taking a nap and sometimes tending to the animals.

Courtesy – http://www.cliparting.com
On one such bright and warm Sunday, all our clotheslines were fully packed, with some clothes on the bushes. One of those was a small pretty frock belonging to one of my cousins.

One of the shepherd’s cows was grazing close to the bush which had the frock, and when the cow shook its head, the frock slid into one of its horns.

The cow was totally oblivious to the frock, and kept grazing. Each time the cow moved, the little frock moved up and down.

We were all in splits. The next step was to get the frock, without startling the cow.

The bravest members tried all the tricks they had to get the frock. By this time the cow had probably sensed that something was amiss, and took off down the hillock.

A few people ran behind the cow, trying not to scare it. The shepherd was coming up the hillock, and helped retrieve the frock.

He spoke to the cow, as if to calm it down. The cow went back to its grazing, and the adults went back home. The kids stayed back to relive the whole incident.

Advertisement

The Curious Case Of The Grazing Sheep

I am spring cleaning my digital cupboard today. A virtual cupboard distributed around the house, across numerous phones and laptops and tablets.  How did we manage to hoard so many files? Music, photos…phew! Millions of them. Selfies…(who started this trend?). My eyes hurt with clearing up.

I am ready to give up within the hour. Maybe I should take this up device-by- device. With that decision made, I feel less daunted.

As I browse through the photos, a couple of them from late last year make me smile.

A couple of years ago, we picked up a unique chess set from New Zealand, during our holiday there.

The chess board has green and yellow squares and all the pieces are sheep – black sheep (ha ha) and white sheep.

I treasure this chess set a lot; and my kids are banned from using it to play chess – as the material from which the set is made is breakable.

Late last year, my little nephew came to visit. After having his milk in the morning, he would walk around the living room. I conducted conversations with him from the kitchen, as I experience the ‘mom-goes-crazy-every-morning’ syndrome, and was usually tied-up with my chores.

When the children left for school and I sat down for a breather, I was amused to see that the sheep had started grazing in the meadow. My ‘no-one-touches-this-chess set’ policy flew through the window.

This picture was taken that day.

So everyday, till he was with us, my little nephew grazed his sheep in the green and yellow meadow.