Praying for cows ;)

16 years ago

We love the things that little children say and do...our kids and grandkids, but do you remember any of the funny things that you did when you were a little kid?

I had a fixation with cows. I loved horses too, but except for an old man who drove a buckboard into town to buy his groceries and supplies, there weren't very many horses nearby, but quite a few cows. We had a milk cow named Cherry, and I had a heifer named Queenie, but Queenie had brucellosis, which meant she could never have a calf, and so she was sold...much to my dismay. I was five, or less, because I remember we were living in "the telephone office." My mother was the switchboard operator and it was in the living room. The house came with the job.

If I saw a trailer go by with cows in it, I would run inside and ask my mother where they were going. Sometimes she would tell me they were taking them to another pasture, and

to me, that was okay, but sometimes she said they were going to Port City, which was the name of the stockyards, and slaughter house. In that case, I would say a prayer for the cows. (I am sure my mother had no idea that it upset me that cows might be going to Port City...or she would have told me they were all going to a different pasture).

I also would sit in the back seat of the car when we were going some place and wave at the cows in the pastures we passed. I remember my nephew, who was a year older than me,

was sitting in the backseat and he started waving at the cows too, and me, being sort of a brat, complained to my mother that I didn't want him waving at the cows. So she told us that he could wave at the cows on his side and I could wave at the cows on my side. I can still see him sitting there, waving at the cows.

I had a cat that I named Fig Orchard...I just liked the way it sounded...and an imaginary friend that worked in the fig plant...which was the towns only industry...a fig preserves

plant...and his name was Hurdy Gurdy.

So...tell me I am not the only weird one. Did you do silly things like that...or have an imaginary friend?

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Comments (17)

Marilyn Sue
16 years ago
Well, I don't think I waved at cows, but I used to fly around at night. It seemed so real and once I told my uncle I flew over his house and he laughted and I never flew again. :(

Sue
donna_oh
16 years ago
Speaking of cows, when I was little, mom & dad would take us for a ride in the country & dad would stop when we saw cows & we'd yell out the window---Come Boss---LOL

Had an imaginery dog named Pepper--took him everywhere with me--when I'd go to a dress shop with mom, I'd tie him around a chair leg so he wouldn't run away! Prolly drove my mom nuts--

Donna (^_^)
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susanjf_gw
16 years ago
didn't see many cows growing up in hollywood, lol...but they actually brought a milk cow in a trailer to the elementary school! showed how to milk her...

think we followed up the next day by making butter in class..we sat in a circle and shook a jar of heavy cream, then tasted the butter on crackers...
gazania_gw
16 years ago
I love cows and reading about them gives me pleasure.

I guess cows aren't into the four food groups, especially when they are two of them. ~Anthony Clark

Here is a link that might be useful: More quotes about cows
lynn_d
16 years ago
I had an imaginary friend growing up, I think a piece of that came about because I was an only child till my mom married my stepfather when I was 15. And I think because I was an army brat and moving all over the place, I guess I yearned for a constant companion, even a sibling.

I don't remember waving at cows....but I remember mooing at them! LOL!!
phyllis__mn
16 years ago
I had an imaginary friend, Isabella. My mother would come for a tea party with us.
jennmonkey
16 years ago
We grew up in the city, but we would always moo at every single cow we passed in the car.

My sister had an imaginary friend named Mr. Man. We used to have to keep an empty chair for him at the dinner table because my sister would cry if anyone sat on him. LOL
Sally Brownlee
16 years ago
We used to play a game in the car called "cows in the graveyard"
You kept count of all the cows you saw (sometimes hundreds!) and the first person to see a cemetary shouted "COWS IN THE GRAVEYARD!" and the other person had to start counting all over.
Silly I know, but it did help pass the time on long trips.

I used to think that if I practiced enough and believed enough, I could fly. Mom let me jump off the picnic table til I was punch-drunk tired. She drew the line when I started climbing the tree with my cape on...
lydia1959
16 years ago
Salgal, we still play the "cow" game... but we only count the cows on our side of the car and if the graveyard is on our side we lose all our cows. That's my favorite road trip game.
Sally Brownlee
16 years ago
Lydia I remember counting on our side of the car only. I thought Mom made it up to keep us from fighting.

Funny thing... we took the same 5 hour trip pretty often to grandmas and I was a little older than my sister - I always knew when the graveyards were coming up..teeheehee!
lilliepad
16 years ago
I loved horses but was scared to death of them. I would have never gotten close enough to pet one,much less ride one! I loved the way they looked,and was obsessed with "Black Beauty". I would draw pictures of them and wish I had one,poor thing would have starved to death if I did have one because I would never have gotten close enough to it to feed it. I still think they are beautiful creatures but am still afraid of them. Anyway,when I was 9 or 10 I would get a broom and use it as a stick horse and run up and down the sidewalk in front of my house,making noises like a horse makes,pretending that I was riding a horse! I'll bet the neighbors wondered what was wrong with that crazy little girl.LOL Now you all know!
marilyn_c
Original Author
16 years ago
I never heard of cows in the graveyard, but I remember playing a road trip game called zip. You got one point for a white horse, two points for a white donkey and three points for a white mule. If you saw one, you said zip! Actually, only played that one time when we went on a road trip with another family. It's hard enough finding a white horse, much less a white mule.

I had a stick horse too. I painted it black with one end white...blaze face...and the other end white...stockings.

My grandmother lived next door and she was a mean old buzzard. I went over to play with my cousins who were visiting her one time, and at lunch time, she told me to go home for lunch...she didn't have enough to "go around." So when I came back, after lunch, she had my stick horse in the
trash fire, and when I tried to pull it out, she tried to hit me with her cane. She actually ran at me...she was in her 70's. I remember my cousin said, "Git her, granny!"
I can laugh about it now, because my cousins loved horses...just like I did, and said when they grew up they were going to have stables, etc., etc. As it turned out, one became an alcoholic and had 5 kids and the other had about that many marriages. I went on to raise horses...the first one I got was when my grandmother died and the estate was settled. "Get her, granny!" :))
soxxxx
16 years ago
My DGD would not do it anymore now that she is a teenager, but when she was 6-8 years old we would have prayer rides.

She prayed for people on the passenger side and I for those on the left. It was just a short prayer and of coarse the persons never knew that someone was praying for them.

One day when we had traveled quite a way on a rural road without seeing anyone, she said "Grandma I guess I am just going to have to pray for those mules out there," and she did.

I still pass the same mules sometimes and now they get a little silent prayer from me.
erica
16 years ago
You would definitely pray for the cows around here. The dairy factory farms here are like nothing you can imagine. The conditions are so terrible:-( No exaggeration.

On a happier note, my bike was a horse when I was young:-)
carol_in_california
16 years ago
I still talk to cows and birds and trees and even bugs.
One day, long, long ago I was outside and I spied a spider so I said hello to it and asked how its day was going....my young son was behind me (I didn't know he was there) and he was so excited I talked to "bugs" because he did, too.
I take pictures of cows if I have a chance.
bulldinkie
16 years ago
Why do you think i never ate any of our Texas Longhorned cattle.after seeing thier eyes,how happy they are to see y I cant eat them..
marilyn_c
Original Author
16 years ago
Erica, I don't know where you live, but I know what you mean...I saw a dairy like that in NM and it was horrible. It
made me glad that I don't drink milk and made me change to buying organic milk...which I hope is better...to cook with.
We lived in a dairy community for 30 years and every other place was a small dairy. The cows went out to pasture during the day. It wasn't like the feedlots that factory dairies have. I know they are terrible. I do feel sorry for the cows.

Praying for cows ;)

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