Thursday, March 18, 2010

Meet The Blogger and Her Bovine Friends

My favorite cow refused to take pictures with me. I was insulted! Oh well.

I rarely get pictures of myself. I don't really like having pictures of me taken for a lot of reasons. But, I needed a photo for the sanctuary's website. I let my boss handle my camera. This is brave of me, for I am uber-paranoid with my cameras. The shots were okay but the lighting was not great and so I converted them to black and white.

Regardless, you now get to see THREE photos of me! Scary, for me. More importantly, you get to see COWS, the best non-dog domestic species on earth. Irrefutable fact, folks.

This is Nicholas. I sat with him for 20 minutes. He is at his best when lying down chewing cud. This is when he is incredibly tolerant and, more importantly, not prone to wild fits of dangerous play behavior.
Nicholas and me

I guess I lied about Maddie's shoulder height. With the angle, it's hard to tell, but she's still about 5'9/5'10 at her shoulders. She is a big, beautiful cow. Because she had problems with her first pregnancy, UC Davis' dairy farm was going to send her to slaughter. However, the vet school liked her personality and chose her for their blood donor cow program. Normally they are sent to slaughter. A reputable vet fell in love with Maddie. She had to use her Voice of God to get Davis to release the cow. I was duly impressed.
Maddie and me

This is just proof that Maddie is still really tall. Her hip and rear end are definitely 6' tall. She's a tall lady cow. I am not using this photo for the website, in case you were wondering.
Maddie's butt and me

7 comments:

KG said...

Ya look gorgeous, ma'am.

The first one is my favorite, because of you laughing and adding even more joy to a photo of what is clearly the Happiest Bovine Ever. I can just hear him omg don't stop scratching right there DON'T STOP. His chin is bent upward so far it looks as if his head has sprung right up out of the grass like a stalk of corn.

(Ok, but seriously, you are looking good and I want to know your secret now immediately please. Whenever I go out to the kennel, it takes about 2.5 seconds before I'm covered in streaks of mud, paw-prints of dog shit are planted all over my front, I've accidentally knelt in a puddle of urine and my shirt has a hole in it from one of our divine dogs trying to "play" with it while its still on my body.

And I have to put my hair up in ballet-nazi formation and wrap it in this athletic-gauze-headband stuff because otherwise I would come home with all the aforementioned debris and more hangin' out in my filthy curls.

How do you stay so clean and put-together and your hair looks so goddammed nice. HOW? DIVULGE NOW KTHX.

pibble said...

While a picture of you smack up against a cow's behind is - er - great, I do like that first one. What a gigantic head (Nicholas, not you)!

YesBiscuit! said...

You are beautiful! You should take more pictures with you in them. Or have someone take er - you know what I mean.
That first picture - I can't get over the idea that the cow's head is sticking out the ground. Or that he's just a head. I didn't know cows like to graze while lying down. The ones I see are always standing up chewing it seems like.

Unknown said...

@KG: Ha! Thanks! If I had a close up of my jeans, you'd see all the dirt from the chickens climbing all over me. I get pig nose prints on my jeans all the time and cow nose goobers on my shirt frequently too. The cows were too into grazing to pay much attention to me. :)

I'm laughing at your hair management! (I mean, no offense, but it sounds both funny and fascinating at the same time!)

@Pibble: Ha,I don't know why my boss took that photo but I thought, hey, neither of us look HORRIBLE. :) Nicholas' head is big!

@YesBiscuit!:Thanks. I'm shy, and I'll only really pose for photos if animals are involved, heh. Holy cow, you're right - Nicholas' head DOES look like it's just coming out of the ground. Ha! He's mainly chewing his cud, not grazing. Cattle love to ruminate while lying down, it's apparently very relaxing.

Retrieverman said...

I see those cows didn't go to Bovine University.

I guess they are self-educated.

Luci's Mama said...

love the black & white photos of you & nicholas :) You have such an awesome job!!! I am envious that you get to be around all those beautiful animals all day!

Michael DeAntonio said...

That cow is huge. I wonder if you put two cows in a ring if you could get them to fight each other and then bet on it.

I'm just saying, that cow has a crazy look in her eye.