Wednesday, March 1st 2023
Dear Vashon Loop Readers and Subscribers,
Hello, and apologies for the brief hiatus in content. It’s been a wild month, has it not?
This article will be published and freely available to all, in our March 7th Issue, but our paid subscribers (thank you so much!) get a sneak peak. Enjoy! And…if you choose to upgrade to paid (or invite friends and family to do so), let us thank you in advance!
By Marc J. Elzenbeck
Empty pastures are like the vacuums, which nature abhors. If you happen to have one, fenced and reasonably capable of growing grass, things will appear to fill it.
Soon enough, someone is bound to notice, and ask, "Would you like a slightly used goat? How about two?" If you respond, "Yes, but only if you drop them off and lock the gate," you’ll be amazed at the speed. Presto!
And so it was that we obtained the sweet-tempered Millie, and her young sidekick, the high-born Billy. Millie fulfilled her purpose as a defoliant, but Billy, an African import, was so picky his lips touched neither native nor invasive Himalayan blackberry leaves. He preferred kale, lettuce, the bark of fruit trees, and above all, flower beds.
As it turned out, after Millie passed away from old age or constant molestation, Billy wasn't as "fixed" as had been claimed. Greener pastures were found after a determined search, and Billy managed to wind up as stud on a goat farm across the country in upstate New York – a happier fate than smuggling him into Seattle in the wee hours and tethering him on a former neighbor's back lawn.
On the plus side, we learned a fair amount about goats, in that they may come, and they may go.
At some point in the goat experiment, a displaced young Holstein needed refuge, and after due process, we responded, “Yes, but only if you drop her off and lock the gate.” Having grown up in dairy country, I attended Cow Pie High, right between two commercial dairies, dodged bulls while picking apples, and manure was familiar territory.
Much later, my wife attended an immersive Permaculture Boot Camp on Vashon. While there, she hit it off with a bunch of people, one of them from an old family on the Island since before the days of Ma & Pa Kettle (see “The Egg and I”). Her perma-buddy had adopted the homeless Holstein, temporarily placing her with a foster herd of Austrian Highlands.
Then, the local radio broadcaster that owned the pasture, which had at first seen value in free lawnmowers, reneged, citing plausible fears its underground antenna network could be bent out of shape. So it was that one bright October morning, a cheery woman from the Institute of Advanced Bovine Studies dropped off Leslie, complete with papered pedigree, to take possession of our pasture. And then our lives.
Certain facts had been left undisclosed. She was the biggest cow I’d ever seen. The Guinness Book of World Records still lists the largest Holstein, now deceased, as standing 6 foot 4 inches. While we never bothered to measure Leslie, to look her in the eye, I had to look up. She was a year and a half old and already on the far side of a perturbed 3000 pounds, shaking her massive head and letting loose with signature bellows that could rattle old windowpanes and your solar plexus.
No one admits to it now, but one of the kids re-christened her right away to “Leslie Lou Minnie Moo.” It stuck. (My suggestion, “Cowzilla,” was shot down with disapproval.)
Now, you can dabble in goats, but cows demand commitment, even resolve. They will not be ignored. As co-evolved as dogs, they are the answer to that eternal question, “What should we do with all this grass?” There was plenty of it, and Leslie was settled in behind secure new fencing with 55 gallons of fresh water and a fresh salt lick.
I walked back to dial into a conference call, and while it was winding down, a notification popped up on a Vashon Facebook group. It said there was a cow loose on the highway, and my immediate thought was: “Hahaha! What kind of dumb hayseed would let ... their cow … oh.”
To be continued.