The Attachment Style of Cows
Of course our farm was here long before we were. Of course most people in this area have been here longer than we have been here — most of them arriving and already having built their homes before we were born. We bow our heads to listen to their stories as they claim their time — and they claim their right to time through story. They claim their right to time through who they have watched die, through their parents who first sought out this land from Berkeley, Eugene and Australia. Through the rise in housing prices — so high that some now live in their pottery studios, a bed in the corner by the wood stove — a kiln for a couch. They claim their right to time through the crops they have cultivated, through the garlic they have planted, through the cottonwoods they have seen fall. But of course, I am speaking mainly of the white transplants here. The Hispanic community is another story entirely. They claim their time in different ways — ways I am not experienced enough to write about yet. They tell me their stories and they look to see if I am listening or if my eyes have wandered off. They ask, “Should I shorten the story?” Of course not. I shake my head, no. Make it longer. I won’t move my gaze. I will be the most attentive audience so I can earn the story. I won’t miss a word. I will listen if you will speak.
Our farm belongs to the land and the earth it rests on, as well as the man who built our farm, carving out one room at a time. I am always reminded that it was his first. Our walls would not make any sense if they existed in a place other than New Mexico. They would be burned and rebuilt in California and Oregon — anywhere on the west coast really. They would be bulldozed by any sane contractor. But here, they are celebrated, honored even. They are cherished, as time holds meaning here, in this particular place. Roger’s name is carved into our property, everywhere we look. We were not here first, not even close. The handprints of his children are here, in the cement in front of our casita. I watch him learn how to build as I walk around our property. He didn’t quite know what he was doing until the third structure and then, the majesty of his craft as a miller began to take shape. In the final and last structure, he learned how to place wooden beams in the ceiling so that the building feels holy and tall, like it is finally standing up straight. His lines are finally even. His floors are no longer slanted. He has learned to build.
This land and this place, never leaves me short of stories. I am flooded and overwhelmed by all the whispers of life there are to catch.
I take the short cut today into Dixon. I drive down the dirt road, winding through the arroyos and into the river beds. The road is still washed out from the epic storm three weeks ago. My truck bounces as it passes over the ridges and holes in the road and I think about how much damage it is probably doing to my alignment. That is another concern for another time but it seems like something responsible to think about and then I try to forget it, quickly. There are orange cones placed along the edge of the road to keep me from slipping off into the open mouthed ditches but I pay them no mind. This road is not safe either way. A heavy rain could still cause me to slide effortlessly over the embankment and into the sand. The road becomes paved again as I get close to Dixon. I leave No Woman’s Land and come up for air — I’ve been holding my breath a long time, longer than I thought. The dramatic edges and pointed peaks of the sand dunes flatten out into sage brush and dusty hills. Regardless, the scenery is dramatic, open and wild.
I pull up the driveway to a friend’s property, putting my truck into 4-wheel drive. As I get out of the car, she shouts to me, “My horse is dead.” She can barely hold it in, breathless and quivering. She is dressed well, in a smart grey wool coat and she has mascara on. But then again, I have mascara on too. It is a going out day. We always know we are headed somewhere special when, out here, we put mascara on. A quick run to the gas station in Peñasco which also doubles as a Subway can call for make-up. Tractor Supply can even summon up mascara or a new pair of boots. After all, it’s somewhere to show them off. But nevertheless, my friend’s horse is dead.
Her horses are always out in front of her house, the two of them grazing on the green and lush pasture that Dixon provides. There is so much water. The two horses stand head to tail, as if trying to make a secret symbol — the Ouroboros perhaps or an infinity symbol. They also look very similar to the astrological glyph of Cancer. Head to tail, head to tail. I have actually never seen her two horses apart. My friend points to the tarp laid over what looks like a large body in the pasture. The other horse stands beside it, still and waiting. They will have to use a tractor to move the horse body. We can hear them digging the grave behind the tin carport we are standing under, the shovel against the dirt, the dirt raining on the ground. Hard sounds. Tin sounds. Sounds you can’t wait to stop. Sounds you want to cover your ears for. We listen while Lenoard Cohen’s song, So Long, Marianne plays in the background:
Oh so long, Marianne, it's time that we began...
To laugh and cry, And cry and laugh...
About it all again.
I drive by her house again later in the afternoon on my way home. I see that the tarp is gone and the horse who is left is slowly grazing. There is no friend left to mourn over, no body to grieve. Tears starts to roll down my face as I drive the road back to Ojo Sarco. I listen to Iris DeMent’s My Life and it seems like the perfect song. I play it for the dead horse and I play it for the horse who is still alive. It is not a song I listen to often because it is so fucking sad but today, it feels right:
And my life, it’s half the way traveled
And still I have not found my way out of this night
And my life, it’s tangled in wishes
And so many things that just never turned out right
To watch an animal grieve is harder for me to tolerate. Harder than perhaps watching a human grieve. I cannot comfort an animal with an explanation of death. I cannot tell them how their beloved died or why they died. The loss is only accompanied by a lack of words. I am robbed of my usual method of comforting — my commas an arm around the shoulder. I want to rush to fill the empty space, the silence. I want to soothe them with a sermon or a prayer. I want to grab the intellectual and stuff it into a vase. There, now it looks pretty, arranged.
When our calf Ruth died, in May of this year, we took her body away quickly while we distracted her mother since we didn’t know how a grieving, 800-pound cow mother would respond to the death of her baby. After we buried Ruth and came back to check on Rose, Rose was out grazing in the field, perhaps accepting that her life as a cow required her to go on, to continue grazing and fill her rumen. But perhaps not. Perhaps grazing is a cow’s way of disassociating from uncomfortable feelings. I know I have my favorite methods.
Animals, and let me specifically speak for cows here, are vulnerable to the decisions we make for them.They are incredibly attached animals. If they had an attachment style, perhaps it would be anxious. But that makes total sense to me. Shouldn’t we all be anxious when we lose the ones we love? Who can stay calm when an attachment is threatened?
When you sell a cow, slaughter a cow or a cow dies, they lose their friends and a lot of times, they have no choice about when and where they lose their friends. I’m not sure that anything breaks my heart more than this. Their attachments and deep bonds are susceptible to the desires of the humans who watch over them. We decide their herds and their family units. We decide the fate of their lives. Will we breed them or slaughter them? Will we sell them at auction to be turned into veal or to a kid who wants to enter the cow into a county fair? Will we allow them to wander the pasture that runs along our kitchen window and slip them snacks while we make dinner? Will they become Instagram pets and inspire a nation? Will we bathe them and blow dry them? Or will we let the snow fall on their strong backs, wetting and slicking their manes? How will we decide for these wild beasts what is best for them and for us?
Our new calf, Billie, loves his mom but I actually think his favorite adult cow is his aunt, Rose. Rose is playful with Billie, responding to his request for a quick head butt by offering her large head as a ramming post. Twilight seems to be the witching hour for Rose and Billie, they become full of impending moonlight energy and start to run in circles around the barn, kicking their back legs up in the air and jumping up at one another. When they are out in the field together, Rose licks Billie as if she is trying to comb his hair. Rose lets Billie eat off her pile of alfalfa and stands close to him when strangers come into the barn.
When I was little, we used to buy one cat, one dog, one lizard, one hamster — probably because this felt less chaotic for my parents — and now I see, that animals don’t like to live alone. You cannot have one cow. Remember how Rose was so anxious when we first got her? She would start mooing at us the moment we would leave her down at the barn, alone. We didn’t believe she was just lonely. We didn’t believe she was making the Call of the Cow, but she was. She MOOED for her people. She MOOED for her kind and she waited. She waited and waited until finally, we understood what she wanted. Silly humans. We don’t come in singles. We come in pairs and heaps and packs. We cannot have just one, controllable cow. You must take us all or take none of us.
Our community was already working to arrange another horse to come and be a companion for the horse who lost her best friend. By 11am, there were already two other horses lined up. There is an understanding here, in these mountains, about the gravity of animal loss. People move quickly. Horses are easy to come by if you don’t care about the breed or how they have been taken care of. Then, you can have any horse you want. You can have a horse with a battered hoof or a horse with a bad temper. You can have a horse that likes to escape or a horse who will chew through a fence.
This morning, we receive the first snow of the season. It is a light snow, not fully sticking to the ground but enough to wet the backs of our cattle. I go down to the barn and kneel by Billie, scratching him under his harness, along his jawline where he likes it the most. I rub his throat and chest so that he arches his back. I whisper, “Happy first snow, my boy.” He looks sideways at me out of his wide and strange cow eyes. The cats nestle under me as I pet Billie, finding temporary respite from the snow under my thighs. I stand up and fasten a short rope to Billie’s halter and take him for his morning walk around our barn — one full circle. Billie is learning to walk on a lead, becoming a cow that will understand the meaning of a rope. A rope for transportation, a rope for staying still. It feels important to train what will one day be a 1,000 pound bull. When I let him off the rope, he runs under his mother and starts to nurse, seeking comfort after a hard five minutes of training. And when he is done with that, he runs to Rose, rubbing his nose along her side, their red hair matching. He could be hers. He could be theirs. He is in his herd and I cannot image separating them.
