The mama cow bellows from the pasture nearby, lined up at the barbed wire fence with her hungry calf and the others.
“Bring us some tasty hay,” she calls to the pick-up driving rancher. The other girls join in the chorus: “There’s nothing to eat but prickly weeds and nettles out here.”
It’s true. A goat would turn their nose up.
“And what about water? The dirty stock pond is so low we must wade out into the mud for a drink.” They haven’t forgotten how their friend, Hazel got stuck, chest deep in the muck, and someone came with a tractor to pull her out. She left the herd shortly afterward.
The rancher rolls up in his beat up squeaky truck, with a large round bail impaled on a pointed pole in the back. Cigarette smoke wisps from the cab, as he lowers the massive alfalfa wheel to the ground. The hay is moldy and faded from the sun; it hasn’t gotten better with time—like fine wine.
“Great..,” a few of the bitter bovines complain. “He brought an old bail that has been outside longer than we have.” The crusty cowboy drops the hay and drives off, without so much as a word to the herd.
A rooster, from a nearby farm cheerfully lauds the brand new day. “That’s easy for you to say,” the first mama cow moos, her young calf suckling from her nearly empty udders.
Then and there the whole herd decides to make a break that night for greener pastures. “Too much is enough,” snorts one of the yearling heifers. The flimsy three wire fence won’t stop a passel of one-thousand pound colicky cows.
The rancher is indifferent, rattling up to the local casino in the same old truck. He feels lucky today, like a six hour shift at the slots will pay off his mountain of debt.
Back at the pasture, the girls are gambling too, that they can mix in unnoticed with the herd in the next field, on the farm with the happy rooster.
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep, O Lord, you preserve both men and the beast.
Psalm 36:6 (NIV)
This short story was inspired by Matthew Richardson, a wordsmith writer friend from Scotland.
The Stigma Stops Here. 🛑
#mentalhealthmatters
Davids Daily Dose 
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