Walk With Me In the Country As I Cross An Item Off My List

I’ve lived in the country most of my life. There were a few exceptions here and there but for the most part, I am a nature-loving freak who is happily living a rural lifestyle.

Lots of trees, moving water and open space lets me restore my energy.

I’ve learned to appreciate the smooth flow that can exist out in the country (and usually does) in the absence of crowds and extreme amounts of concrete and asphalt.

Just around the corner from where I live is a series of farms. A few rear livestock of some description, others grow cash crops and then there are some that do both.

It’s been quite a while since it’s been nice enough to walk outside. We haven’t had very many nice days this Spring. Instead we’ve been pelted by freezing rain and the odd snow storm.

Still.

It’s May, Mother Nature and we’ve done 6 months of hard winter...

Can you please just have a hot flash and throw us right into Summer?

You can see the back of a little yellow house in the photo (above). This is a tiny seasonal cottage that gets used very occasionally, in the middle of summer.

Unfortunately, because it is rarely used, it’s becoming run-down due to neglect. It seems like the cattle have become squatters.

You can also see the river peeking between the trees in the distant background.

I had begun the process of hauling my ass up to the top of the hill so that you can see what I see from that particular vantage point when I stopped to say hello to...ground beef.

Wait a minute, that’s a Holstein cow not a beef cow.

(You can tell by the black and white hair and the shape of her skeletal frame.)

This means she’s a dairy cow, so we’ll be having a bit of a milk-shake when this old girl finishes chewing her cud and goes to stand up.

This breed of cattle originally hailed from Holland and Germany (I think).

Cows have 4 stomachs. When a cow eats, the food isn’t chewed very well and goes into the first 2 stomachs where it begins to be digested. Then the food gets regurgitated and the cow chews on it some more. This regurgitated food is called cud.

I’m not a bovine expert but I did stop half way up the hill to appreciate the animal, say hello to her and vape some cannabis.

Nothing like mixing a little exercise with some Death Bubba to put a happy spring in your step.

The cow was eating grass and I was inhaling it.

(Synchronicities are everywhere, I tell you. Just humour me. It’s my story and in my world, I have things in common with this cow. Lol!)

Did I mention that it’s a big hill?

While I had stopped, I also took a video call from another Steemian.

You’ll never guess who it was...

Yes, @francisk.

Francis rang me from the inner sanctum of the “boys’ locker room”, at his gym.

Oh my...is right!

Plus, I had to confess that he caught me in a one sided vape session with the cow.

Yeah, no shit.

(Actually, there was quite a bit of shit everywhere in the pasture. I mean just 1 cow will do that, not to mention 50+.)

Unbeknownst to Francis, smoking in the boys room has been on my bucket list for quite some time.

• #989 “smoke cannabis in a men’s room somewhere.”

This was posted to YouTube by UnitedStatesRocker66 on Nov. 15, 2010.

(Sometimes you just have to stick with the original. This was recorded in 1973 by Brownsville Station. I’m not looking for a fight but I happen to think this band did a much better job the first time around than Motley Crüe’s cover in 1985.)

So, Burning Man ( my nickname for Francis because of the huge bonfires he builds on his homestead) showed me around the locker room while I finished my session and I showed him my lucky cow.

It was a decent trade...

Seriously, no one should buy a cow if they can get access for free or, have to pay for access to the boy’s room so they can knock an item off their bucket list.

(Yeah, you can thank Death Bubba for all this creativity and for introducing wired technology into the art of walking and making that even more fun. I wonder if our @lyndsaybowes ever thought in a million years her tag would morph into this.)

We continued the march up the hill.

@francisk in virtually time and Bubba and I in real time.

This guest-walker thing is super cool, considering that @francisk and I live in completely different countries.

Thankfully we are both located in the same time zone so orchestrating this wasn’t too bad from a logistical perspective.

We had a grand time talking about crypto and just generally shooting the shit.

Back to the cows...

Originally, there was a “right of way” between our land and the river. Back in the day, the cattle would have been brought down to the river to drink.

Now, they have their own watering hole and the heard (which number into the 50s) don’t have to be lead down the hill to the river’s edge.

Finally, here’s the view from the top of the hill:

Lots of trees, water, open space and fresh country air.

It was the first decent day that we’ve had and it was a real peach...just the kind you want to share with good friends.

In other news

Make sure you check out @fracasgrimm ‘s blog because I will be making a guest appearance of my own on his weekly radio show cronik-n-coffee. This will air tomorrow night.

I welcome your comments and I invite you to follow me on my journey...from time to time, I’ll take you on a little rip and there might be a guest or two or, maybe 800. (I like to leave my options open.)

~ Rebecca