By Harold Brummett
Denmark Star Route
While working for FEMA at a disaster in Puerto Rico one of my fellow volunteers upon
learning I had a small farm made the statement, “cows are pretty dumb aren’t they?” I
was stunned.
Never in all my dealings with the bovine species had I ever considered them dumb.
Words like curious, obstinate, evil, dangerous, good, and almost every other descriptor
one could apply to people can be applied to animals.
I told my fellow volunteer that while he could reasonably be assured that cows would
never walk on the moon, for cows they get along just fine. Intelligence cannot simply
use humans as the measuring stick.
Animals have other attributes that one can appreciate as universal. No doubt, cows feel
love and loss as well. Once after burying a calf that had been born too deformed to live I
watched the mother stand over the grave for days crying low soft moans before
eventually rejoining the herd.
The other day an incident happened that touched me. While no longer having cows on
the place, chickens are my hobby. A hen hatched two young ones late in the year. I
turned them out for the first time and it was late in the day. When it was time to roost the
mother went up to their nest.
One baby followed but the other baby could not figure out how to get in. I watched the
drama while sitting on a lawnmower in the shop a little distance away so as not to
interfere with the lesson but close enough to thwart any predators.
The mother called and demonstrated repeatedly the route to get in and eventually went
to roost and just called to the now frantic baby. After a little bit the baby came over to
the lawnmower, jumped up where I was sitting and allowed me to catch it and put it with
its mother. Not rocket science but insightful for the young bird.
I keep a couple of hives of bees and sometimes it is necessary to feed them sugar
water. After pulling what honey I want and there is a summer dearth, where water is
hard for the bees to find, the flowers are few and the leaves dry in the trees rustle like
autumn – I feed.
It came to my attention that if the feeder is empty a few bees would find me on the farm
and bump into me repeatedly. Sure enough when I looked, the feeder would be empty.
Don’t bother me with contradictions. I know what I know and the bees know me.

Many years ago when my father Audley was living with me, we would have
conversations about how the relationship between animals and humans on the farm has
changed. Nowadays it seems that the relationship is more paternal where the humans
take care of the creatures, providing for their every need.
Audley said in his day (he was born in 1922) it seemed that the mules, horses and oxen
understood that the plowing, planting, harvesting and storing was as much for the
animals benefit as it was for the people. Long days spent together, communicating with
little more than gee, haw, get up and whoa back. A tractor can do more for sure, but
there has been something lost along the way.
Industrial farming can feed millions and its efficiency is necessary. There are just a few
farmers left on the land and with the exception of the Amish, fewer still that can have a
bond with what provides food and fiber for us all.
As the temperature falls and I make sure my birds are fed and housed against the cold I
think back to my city friend from FEMA. I was right, cows aren’t dumb.