WHO KNEW THAT COWS LONG FOR SPRING?
Farm gets city folk up close to animals
Holly stuck her big bovine nose through the pen’s metal slats curious about the camera-wielding stranger in front of her.
It was one of the few spring days that’s felt like spring this year. And Holly (at least that’s what her ear tag said) was hanging with her girlfriends totally oblivious about what was soon to happen.
That beautiful Saturday — Earth Day, as it happened — was also Spring Turn Out Day. After months and months in the barn, it was the day they would be freed to graze on the lush grass at Kootenay Meadows Farm.
Wayne Harris opened the gate. The girls just stood there. Harris clanged a stick on the slats. “Come on, girls! Come on, girls!” he urged.
They stood a bit more. Then, finally, a big Holstein bolted, kicking up her back heels in the freshly spread sawdust, and the stampede was on.
They thundered en masse down to the end of the field. Some kicked up their heels. Others stopped, ducked their heads and briefly tasted the tender grass before hustling to catch up.
By the time they reached the end of the meadow, it was the grass more than freedom that was the attraction for most. But it appeared the odd few had scores to be settled after a winter inside. They bunted and lunged at each other.
Then, they settled, recreating the bucolic scene that’s been with us for centuries until — spooked by something — they bolted again, en masse. And, trust me, even if it is a herd of dairy cows, it’s a bit frightening to see them coming toward you.
They veered away as I scrambled for safety behind the electric fence. (My farm-raised mother would have laughed if she could have seen me.) As quickly as they’d started, they stopped, dropped their heads and resumed eating.
Spring Turn Out has always been an annual ritual at Kootenay Meadows Farm. But it was only a couple of years ago that Denise Harris realized how few urban-dwellers had any idea of the exuberance of cows freed after a winter of being cooped up.
Harris got the idea to invite people to see it after witnessing the Swiss ritual of garlanding cows and parading them through villages each spring en route to the Alps. She and her husband also saw similar celebrations in Sweden where, by law, dairy cows must be pastured for a minimum of eight hours a day for two months a year.
The first Spring Turn Out attracted only a few dozen people. This year? There were several hundred of all ages. Some held babies. Others clung to little ones perched on the rails.
As the cows gambolled and a cellist played, Harris raced about. One minute she was inside the little shop at the edge of the pasture helping fill orders for cheese, milk bottled in glass and butter. The next minute, she was out the door, checking to see whether she needed to restock the coffee, hot chocolate, cheese, crackers and doughnuts set out for the visitors.
The Harrises have been dairy farming for close to 30 years. Ten years ago, Denise decided they should try making rawmilk cheeses to showcase their high-quality organic milk. Since then, they’ve made quite a name for themselves and their intergenerational family farm. Their Alpinedon is the star. It’s made only from milk produced when the cows are in the fields and aged for at least six months to gain its strong and layered taste.
But it’s not just their dairy products or the annual Spring Turn Out that has endeared the Harrises to their community. They’ve taken in a family of refugees — Karen people from Myanmar — who live and work on the farm with them.
Most of us have moved so far from the farm that we have no idea about any of it, from the sheer size of a cow to how hard it is to raise them to how sweet the grass smells on a warming spring breeze.
Few of us know the rich, sweet taste of milk at the farm gate that is so different from the stuff on the grocery shelf stamped with its best-before date.
Within a few generations in Canada, as family farms have been abandoned as adult children moved to the cities, we’ve forgotten so much.
Who knew that cows gambolled?