Where the green grass grows

I'm a lyric guy.  I like to listen to lyrics to songs.  They're in effect, poetry, but poetry I can understand!  I especially like the lyrics of Bluegrass and Country songs because they are largely about "heartland values" that most people call passe or trite these days, but not me.

Tim McGraw sings a song called, "Where the green grass grows".  It's a song in which he laments the "rat race" and longs for the country life.  It portrays an individual who has gone off seeking the allurement of city life and has found it empty and bankrupt and is now setting his sights toward home.  Here is the second verse and the chorus:

Well I'm from a map dot
A stop sign on a black top
I caught the first bus I could hop from there
But all this glitter is gettin' dark
There's concrete growin' in the city park
I don't know who my neighbors are
And there's bars on the corners and bars on my heart

I'm gonna live where the green grass grows
Watchin' my corn pop up in rows
Every night be tucked in close to you
Raise our kids where the good Lord's blessed
Point our rocking chairs towards the west
Plant our dreams where the peaceful river flows
Where the green grass grows

I think a lot of rural youth go through this evolution.  The trouble is, once you leave, it is hard to go back due to debt and the high capital costs of farming.  And then there is the issue of sprawl in which the farmland is being encroached upon by invading suburbia and strip malls.  Many acres of what was once prime farmland is now planted in asphalt and concrete.  Sad.

A burgeoning crop of concrete

 Anyway, cows like to be where the green grass grows, because as ruminants, they just love to eat it and abosolutely need it.  Let's talk a minute about the subject of rumination.  For cows, rumination is a part of normal digestion, in which the bovine brings up previously swallowed grass or hay, re-chews it, and swallows it again.  That's just gross, right there, but that's just what cows do and they make no apology for it.  Rumination aids the cow by allowing her to eat quickly and chew later while resting.  I can hear mom saying, "Don't just gulp down your food.  Slow down, swallow and let's enjoy each other's company."  Cow's mamas don't teach them that.

Here are a few photos I've taken of our cows ruminating:


Daisy chewing her cud in a totally unflattering position for the old girl

If this was a video, you were see her mouth moving, chewing up grass eaten earlier in the day.  The cows will go out eating in the morning and evenings, the cool of the day, and they will return to the heavy shade, and slumber and ruminate.  What a life.
 

Rosie is chewing her cud standing up

Little Blackberry, who is not so little anymore, is primarily eating grass now, and will be weaned in another few weeks.  She has started chewing her cud as well.  She is deep in REM sleep, it appears.

Blackberry is fast asleep while chewing her cud

So a milk cow's life ain't too bad.  They eat all day, then sit in the shade and ruminate.  It takes approximately 50 -70 hours for a cow to turn grass into milk.  Amazing!  To produce milk, cows eat grass and use their four stomachs for this miraculous conversion.  The four stomachs and their functions are:

1. The rumen:  Cows graze on grass and swallow it half-chewed.  They truly "eat and run."  The grass mixes with water in their first stomach, the rumen, that holds about 25 gallons of chewed grass.  Whoa!  Digestion starts here as the rumen softens and breaks down the grass with stomach juices and bacteria. 

2. The reticulum:  Here the grass is made even softer and is formed into small wads called cuds.  Each cud is regurgitated (excuse me!) and the cow chews it repeatedly to maximize the gross factor.

3. The omasum:  The cud is then swallowed into the third stomach, the omasum, where it is compacted and squeezed to remove water and further break down the day's meal.

4. The abomasum:  The grass then goes into the fourth stomach, called the abomasum, where it is digested. The digested grass then passes through the small intestine, where all the essential nutrients the cow needs to stay healthy and strong are absorbed, and some are transported to the udder.

You can see that it is all centered around grass, and why, if you have cows, you MUST live where the green grass grows.  Green grass growing - a necessity for cows and people too!



Green grass 'a growin'