The Correspondence of Cattle

Recent view of The Jungfrau from The Land of Happy Cows

Exceptional cheese comes from happy cows. Over the last few years, a constant reminder of that essential fact has been the ringing of cowbells as the background music of my travels hiking in Europe. Most recently, I spent a week in the stunning mountain village of Mürren in the Bernese Oberlandt of Switzerland. While there, I was struck by the total absence of milk barns even though cheese-making is such an iconic and essential part of the local economy. Add to that my overwrought angst about the orange-colored cheddar here in Colorado, and I’ve been thinking about how cows in the Alps might interact with their overseas cousins if given the opportunity. Imagine how a happy Swiss cow might write a letter …

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Greta Holstein

c/o Mürren Beef SA

Mürren

Switzerland

August 23, 2024

VIA AIR MAIL / PAR AVION

Akiko Wagyu
c/o 5k Ranch Cattle Co
Steamboat, Colorado

Dearest Akiko:

I was delighted to receive your letter, all those weeks ago. I apologize for taking so long to respond – with the summer having been so rainy, the grazing in our highest altitude pastures has been exceptional so we’ve all been out of touch more than we like. If it’s any consolation, the clover has been more plentiful and tastier than usual, so we are all quite fat and happy. Judging from the looks on the faces of the visitors to the mountain hut nearby, it would seem that the milk, cheese and butter we are all providing has been a tribute to our wonderful mountain environment. Thankfully, at least all that high altitude walking keeps us fit even if I am a little soft around the udders these days.

I was delighted to hear that you also have had great grazing weather over there. I do worry from time to time that the arid climate in Colorado can make life challenging for you and your herd. One of the great joys for us in summer is the variety in our daily meadow buffets and I am grateful to know that you and yours similarly aren’t spending these months relegated to only eating hay from bales wrapped in plastic. My children romanticize the life you all must lead out there, cowboys and all - my youngest Heidi in particular derives great joy from my reading your wonderful letters out loud to her in my best American accent.

I would like your opinion about something. Last week, the ladies and I had a conversation with a chatty old sheep dog who was visiting the village with her humans. They were from Wisconsin and the dog was curious about how it is that we dairy cows in Switzerland don’t spend time in a milk shed. As you can imagine, we needed her to explain to us what she meant and we were all quite shocked to learn that some American dairy cows spend their lifetimes inside enormous buildings chained to machines that milk them, day in and day out. Can this possibly be true? It’s such a disturbing thought. How can their milk possibly even taste good? I mean, we may all be deaf from the incessant clanging of the bells around our necks, but at least we are mostly free to roam, and I have to believe that it is part of what makes our Swiss cheese so delicious and keeps our humans so happy. I couldn’t help but wonder if this bovine bondage explains why their humans feel the need to dye their cheese yellow – such an awful state of affairs. I didn’t sleep well for a week afterwards. Please let me know your thoughts and experience on the subject. I may also reach out to Aunt Martha in Vermont – she always has valuable perspective on what makes us cows happy.

We’re all now back in lower pastures just in time to start getting ready for the big end-of-summer traditional cow parade through the streets of the village. Heidi will be participating for the first time and is making a fuss about her fancy new outfit for the occasion – it’s all so very Swiss! I for one will be happy to just fit in mine from last year. Everyone’s expecting a big crowd of tourists and the village has been getting better with their social media exposure, so we’re all anxious to look our best and make an impression. I’ll send you some photos from the event; hopefully the weather will hold.

Please give your lovely bull Clyde my best. Regards also to those kind farmers the Gibsons – such a nice family and they certainly appreciate and know how to take care of their Wagyu. I hope that the grasses are tall and plentiful, the sun is forgiving, and your hooves find only soft ground.

All my love, dear cousin.

Greta

Dr. Freud? Paging Dr. Sigmund Freud!

Maroon Bells from Hayden Peak in Snowmass

I drive a Subaru. If that just made the person next to you snicker, continue reading because the rest of this blog post is about them. If that made you snicker, well, what you do next is entirely up to you.

I am not really a “car guy”. I do not have the desire, bandwidth, or financial wherewithal to care much about what my car says about me, my personal style, my political leanings, or my career choices. I like a car that gets me where I need to go in all weather conditions without fail; that doesn’t break down much and isn’t expensive to fix when it does; and that is reasonably parsimonious on petroleum. My current Subaru has saved my life more than once and delivered me from one end of Vermont to the other in some seriously treacherous ice storms. Yes, in Vermont we have ice storms, as in ice falling from the sky and accumulating on the ground, the trees, the roads, our vehicles, on ourselves, and everything else. My Subaru may actually have snickered at the ice storms.

My vehicle has about 120,000 miles on it. I recently asked the head of service at the nearest Subaru dealer what I should expect will go wrong with my car in the next year, just so I’m ready. His response: nothing, my car is in great shape and should last a long while. I promptly took the vehicle to the local super duper car wash to give it the all-over shine that it deserves.

Since moving to Basalt, Colorado, I’ve spent the lions share of my working life commuting “up valley” to Aspen and Snowmass for work. In my Subaru. Famously, the one road in and out of the Roaring Fork Valley, Colorado Highway 82, is exceptionally busy with traffic that often is shockingly bad. The drive from my home to the Aspen gondola, for example, is 18 miles and in summer can take as long as 75 minutes, and that’s when the highway is not under construction. What this means is that I have plenty of time to watch and consider people’s behavior while driving. In fairness, the nature of the cost of living and housing in particular in the Roaring Fork Valley means that the workforce that makes the world turn here overwhelmingly drives to Aspen from towns far afield, and the result is the terrible congestion and some pretty aggressive driving by people anxious to start the clock on their work day.

Sympathetic though I may be to my fellow commuters, I do wonder whether it is my choice of vehicle that causes people to drive particularly aggressively near and around me. Is there something about a Subaru (especially one with a VT sticker on it) that implicates the self-esteem or self-confidence of people who choose to drive very large, gas guzzling vehicles? Does it hurt the ego of a gentleman driving a very large, super-duty, white pickup truck to be “stuck” behind my supremely practical vehicle even when I am driving at the same speed as everyone in my lane? Do people who spend far too much money on finicky, fancy SUV’s with custom license plates that live in their garages in Aspen during the 45 weeks a year when they are not in residence feel that having to navigate around my Subaru in traffic is somehow beneath them? Insert the etymology of the word ‘pretentious’ here.

Although there are plenty of moments when I just extend my middle finger as these people find salvation in their aggression, I do wonder about conducting an experiment. I’d like to drive different vehicles on the same busy route, at the same time of day, on the same day of the week, at the same speed, and in the same lane, and see if it would make a difference to the way people respond to me. To be clear, I have spent a lot of time driving around the valley this summer in a very large super-duty diesel pickup truck for work, so though my speculation is based on anecdotal experience there definitely is a basis to the hypothesis.

More entertaining than scientific, I occasionally daydream about putting up a big sign on Highway 82 that says “Freudian Therapy, next exit”. I also consider creating an Instagram page that functions like a wall of shame for people whose conduct while driving on 82 is a sign of the demise of Western Civilization: “This week’s winners of the Roaring Fork Freudian Therapy Associates gift certificates are [drumroll, please] … the gentleman in the white Ford F-150 Raptor with Texas license plate LVEGUNS and the woman driving the baby blue Bently Bentayga with Colorado license plate ASPEN-22. You can pick up your winnings at the Pitkin County Sherrif’s office and then schedule your therapy appointment.”

Ok, ok. There are some very nice, very considerate people who get stuck in traffic with me. Some of them are even courteous enough to maintain a respectable distance and let others in-and-out when the highway merges into one lane near the Aspen airport. And occasionally, one of those people will waive just like a Vermonter when I let them in front of me. Hmm, maybe they are Vermonters; or perhaps Maine.

I need new tires for my car. My plan is to make it through the scorching hot summer on my current Baldinis and buy new hoops in the fall before the first snow. And when I do, I’ll be confident that my Subaru will get me to-and-from the mountains safely and easily. And if there are people around me who really need therapy to deal with the impact that driving in my vicinity has on their delicate psyches, maybe I’ll just extend my finger in my mind only. Then again …