July 5, 2007

I've seen lots of cows in my life, but somehow these seemed different.

They were all on their stomachs.
Almost every cow, in every pasture, was lying on the ground.

I apologize for the fuzzy photos posted here, but they were snapped from the window of a high speed train.
We were traveling through northern France, headed to Germany.

I was mesmerized by the picturesque and peaceful French countryside.
From what I could see, the farms and villages in France are remarkably uncluttered.
No big, ugly billboards or signs.... no junk piled up outside the barns.
The pasture land appeared almost manicured.

Oh, I'm sorry.... back to the cows.

As we zoomed along the tracks, I began to notice the cows.
Why in the world were they all lying down?

Now don't get me wrong.... I was raised in the south....
I've seen thousands of cows lying in the shade, simply resting or staying cool, but I don't recall ever seeing EVERY COW in EVERY PASTURE for miles on end, lying down.
And it wasn't hot.... the temperature was quite mild.
It all seemed a bit "Twilight Zone-ish" to me.

I pointed out the cows to my wife.
She responded with something like, "Hmmmm."

I began snapping photos of the cows, keeping my face glued to the train window.
(My wife and daughter are still chuckling over that)

Remember, we were on a high speed train -- so the cows would disappear from sight almost as quickly as they appeared.
It was reminiscent of trying to photograph Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster!

Why was this happening?
Maybe, I figured, French cows are just lazy.
Maybe they were on strike.
I asked my wife a simple, rhetorical question.... "How do these cows manage to spread the word among themselves, from pasture to pasture, that everybody should be lying down?"
My wife smiled, trying -- I'm sure -- to avoid feeding my odd preoccupation.

For the remainder of our vacation, whenever I'd mention the cows, everybody suddenly seemed to have something else to do in another room.

But alas, I now know the rest of the story.... my questions (I think) have been answered.
When I got home to Nashville, I read an article about how cows are apt to lie down when it's about to rain.
And, sure enough, I do recall our train eventually passing through a moderate rainfall.

So, it turns out, cows are apparently pretty good weather forecasters.

Now I'm thinking of suggesting to the TV station bosses that we take down some of those neighborhood cameras we've mounted on buildings around town, and relocate them to cow pastures and farms around the mid-state.

Then our meteorologists could say things like, "Taking a look now at our Cow Cams.... 90% of the cows are lying down, so you'd better keep an umbrella handy!"

Who wouldn't watch that!

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