What does it mean to love a cow? Can they love you back? I was thinking about these questions this morning as I was milking Mocha.
When I first laid eyes on Mocha, I instantly fell in love with her. She was hiding behind her mama, Jersey, and her sweet little face just drew me to her! As she grew, so did my resolve that she would learn to trust me and let me pet her. That didn’t happen until she came home to live here at the farm, but that didn’t stop me from trying!
One day when I pulled in the farmer’s driveway, she wasn’t in her usual spot with her mom, and I became so concerned. I scanned the fields around and then I spotted her little brown ears sticking up from the bean field into which she had escaped. She was so adorable!
Her face is the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen on a jersey, and believe me, I’ve seen plenty! For years, leading up to having our own farm, we frequented county fairs and I was always drawn to the cow barn, quickly finding the jerseys and hoping to love on them a little.
Her ears, those same ears that I remember so vividly sticking up out of the bean field, are so expressive of her emotions. Mostly they are curved toward the front exhibiting her inquisitive and nosy nature, which of course shows her intelligence!
Her eyes are big, beautiful and kind-looking, always alert and constantly assessing the situation so that she can know what comes next! She has to know what is going on!
But, her personality! Ahhhh! Her personality! That’s is what makes Mocha MOCHA! I have called her my “diva cow” for so long. She is moody when she is in heat and if you don’t do everything exactly as she wants, she lets you know! When she is happy, she bobs her head back and forth and tries to bop me, like she affectionately does with her bovine family. Now that my book “My Name is Mocha” has been published (now available on Amazon), we now call her our “celebrity diva”.
When I go out to milk her, I always give her some dairy feed first. If I am not the first one in the barn and someone else comes in to muck the stall before I get out there to feed her, she impatiently keeps trying to get out the stall door. When I arrive in the barn, if the person who preceded me there was careless and left the stall door open, she just shoves it open and walks out to me where I am dishing out the feed!! She knows what she likes and that’s what she likes!! When I tell her she needs to turn around and go back in the stall, she turns that big 900-1000 pound body around and jumps and hops back into the stall to get her feed!
She is an excellent mama. She is now pregnant with her fifth calf. The first four are all heifers: Cocoa, Caramel, Truffle and Hazel. Cocoa and Caramel are full Jersey. Truffle and Hazel are half-Jersey and half-Angus. We have gone back to breeding with Jersey, so this next calf due in December will be full Jersey again. I am hoping for her first son!
Her first calf was born early in the morning in the pasture and she did it all by herself. I loved watching her teach her calf. She instinctively knew how to be a good mama. Caramel was born in the barn stall as was Truffle. Hazel was born in the pasture. But with each calf, she showed her excellent maternal instincts. Knowing that her Creator put those attributes and abilities in her to teach her calf is so precious!
So, now she is a celebrity! People who would never have known how special she is, now know her name. My book, “My Name is Mocha” continues to spread her fame. Who would have thought that the sweet little calf who hid behind her mama and rested in the bean field with her ears sticking up would grow up to be such an amazing mama, dairy cow and celebrity diva! Being a celebrity hasn’t made her a “diva”…she was that long before anyone besides those of us here at de Good Life Farm knew her! Now, those who read her book will know how special she is!
So, what does it mean to love a cow? In my opinion, you can’t love a cow unless you really know her…and I love Mocha and all that makes her who she is!
