touch a cow's nose

How now, beige cow? This goal turned out to be much harder to accomplish than I thought it would be, since when I finally found cows that I could get close up to, they were skittish of me. I ended up standing near the cows’ field fence and walking very slowly along it, until I found a cow that didn’t retreat and start twitching as I approach. Truly, a lion among bovines.

At any rate, I didn’t get to touch her nose for long, and only with the backs of the fingers on one hand. My impression was that it was dryer and warmer than a dog’s nose. I got to pet the cow’s snout for a second, and it was rough but pleasant – kind of like the wiry fur that Norwich terriers have.

I’ll try to do this again in the future. But for now, I’m done.

I’m driving to Manhattan, Kansas to visit my family for Thanksgiving. Surely, I will find the Cow Nose of Destiny – the cow nose predestined to be touched by me.

Ok, I’ve been a bad 43Thinger lately because I’ve been ultra-busy. But, I thought I’d share a dream I had last week with y’all. In the dream, I took the day off work and was running errands. It was a realistic dream, one of those ones that doesn’t have surreal elements or dream logic. In the dream, I was driving from one errand to the next and had to drive from Kansas City to Lawrence – a nearby Kansas town. On the way, I noticed a field of cows, and several of the cows were very close to the fence at the side of the road. Naturally, I pulled over and approached the cows, who were curious to see me and gathered up at the fence. I went through touching their noses, and was just thrilled – it was like I’d won the lottery or something.
Then I woke up. I think maybe I need to get out more often. :-D

The cows were right by the fence at the field by the office, so I made an attempt. Unfortunately, the nearest place to park was about a quarter of a mile away, and I wimped out about ten feet into the walk on the shoulder of the road. Cars were going by really fast, and there wasn’t much room to begin with on the shoulder. The ground by the fence looked flat from my car, but that was an illusion; tall grass covered lots of downed branches, chunks of concrete and big holes in the ground. I considered soldiering onward to the cows, but instead had a very clear vision of myself being bitten by a snake, stepping into a hole trying to get away and breaking my ankle, then being mown down by a truck. Then passersby would have to call an ambulance that comes a shade too late, and EMTs would have to identify my crushed remains by finding my very unflattering work ID. So, I went back to the car.

Incidentally, one of my coworkers touched a cow’s nose two weeks ago. She said it’s not the sort of thing she’d normally do, but she thought of me and went for it.

I’ve located two fields with cows within a mile of one of my offices. Unfortunately, they’re on a stretch of road with no shoulder and no ready parking. Also, the cows only hang out by the fence occasionally. No luck so far, but I’m driving by the cows now every time I go to that office. I’m sure my lucky day will come.

I’ve also discovered that there’s something about seeing a group of cows standing around a field that makes me grin. No, I can’t explain it.

Because I’m going to be using dramatically less gasoline, effective as of this morning, I’ll have to work touching a cow’s nose into some other errand. Basically, I can’t just go out driving looking for a cow and it’s attendant nose. Instead, I’ll have to encounter cow noses serendipitously. ::Keeps eyes peeled for cows::

And, I’ve only left the house to go today twice – once to walk the dog and once to go to dinner. I’m going to try to touch a cow nose tomorrow; it seems like it will be a nice change from writing for my project and formatting tables.

It’s raining, and I wouldn’t want the rain to get in the way of my tactile experience of a cow nose. le sigh

Several months ago, I went to business meeting with a couple of colleagues and heard a presenter remark on how easy it was around Wichita (where the conference was) to just jump out of a car, walk to the side of the road and touch a cow on the nose. It struck me that I’ve never touched a cow’s nose in spite of living in an agricultural area of the country.

I’ve only been close enough to a cow to touch its nose once. It was for a 4H event that my husband had to cover for the newspaper he was working for. He has a picture of me feeding a handful of grass to a cow that’s lying on the ground. A second after the picture was shot, the cow stood up and I jumped back about five feet. Cows are huge and (to me) kind of intimidating. They have great eyes, though.

During the next presentation at that conference I wrote up a list of more than 30 goals, most of which are now on my 43T page. It’s time this one joined the queue. My goal is to accomplish this before the end of the summer.