No Secrets in County Kerry - The Cows and Me

Two years ago, I was at my desk writing, when I saw something outside this window that caught my attention.

It was a cow. A cow, black and white, walked past this window. I stopped writing.

This is the view the cow would have had when she decided to turn into my drive.

Did she come from the right or from the left? I don’t know. I don’t have cows for neighbors. Sheep surround the rectory and the church. This cow must have come from a pasture farther on.

She was joined by another cow. Then another. Then a herd.

I didn’t do anything at first. I grew up with cows and expected that what would happen next is what would happen whenever cows in my childhood neighborhood got loose. A frantic herdsman or woman would come racing up the drive to reclaim the cows.

That is not what happened.

A bull strolled by.

Well, there is nothing that would harm a cow in our garden, and nothing that a herd of cows would harm. Not even a bull.

So I waited for the herdsman while the herd found a snack in the back garden.

Lots to munch back there and keep them busy. So I went back to my writing.

But the herdsman did not come running up the drive. So I got on the phone and called one of the few people I knew at that point, just six weeks after I had arrived. Robert is a dairyman. So I figured he might know who keeps cows close in the vicinity of the rectory.

But he lives in Annascaul, and no, he didn’t know whose cows might be in my garden. And bull. But he said he would make some calls.

I shot this video from the door to my patio. The end of the film provides photographic proof of the bull.

The herd was on the move, having lost interest in what really is a lot of grass. But maybe they didn’t care for the nettles.

Anyway, it was about at this point that I realized the gate to my drive was still open. The herd got here safely enough. But vehicles sometimes whiz around the corner. In case the cows decided they wanted to explore another garden, I needed to close the gate.

By now the herd had moved to the side garden, outside my office window. I didn’t want to walk past them. The bull. So I exited the house on the opposite side and started across the front.

For reference: that photo of the driveway—the herd was on the left; I was crossing toward the gate on the right. One calf, a teenager, not a little one, was getting adventurous and ambling toward the gate.

Hufff hufff! That’s how you let a cow know you want it to go no further. I don’t know if it would have worked on the bull.

The bull, from the midst of the herd, was giving me the evil eye. I gave it right back.

I got the gate closed, walked—briskly now— back to the door on the other side of the house, and went back to my writing.

Another twenty minutes or so, the herdsman—herdswoman did arrive, breathless from running, and so thankful I had closed the gate.

I never did learn the full story of the escaped cows. But there is a sequel.

Two weeks later, Helen had returned from her annual visit to Iowa, heart-broken for having missed the cows. She was upstairs when she saw from the landing that sheep were moving in the pasture behind our house. We ran outside and around the corner to learn another story.

There was a sheep farmer, loading some of his flock into a trailer. We introduced ourselves. That’s when he said, “Oh, I know who you are. You’re the lady with the cows!

Oh my goodness. I had been on the Dingle Peninsula for all of two months. And I was known. I was known by people I had not met. Suddenly I realized how public a person I had become in two short months, that this private little story that happened one day when I was the only person in my house, while I was typing another little story was not a private little story at all.

That story would be the foundation of how I was known in the community—the lady who took care of the cows.

On the basis of that story, our new friend John said that he would write a recommendation for us when it came time to apply for citizenship.

I owe those cows a lot. And the bull.