There are cows in a field behind our barn in Sussex, England. I feed them crushed apples and handfuls of mown grass. My husband shook a red dish towel outside, and they bolted across the field like bulls in a ring. Our landlord is the farmer who owns them. He popped in for tea once, parking his giant tractor in their field, the kind of tractor that reduces grass, hedge, or small trees to mulch. As soon as he sat down, the cows began investigating the tractor. By investigate, I mean climb. Three, even four, hooves up off the ground, suggesting a near lineage with mountain goats. Sniffing and climbing, even fighting to get positions. He waved them off, and when he had finished the tea, he cushed them into order, and they trotted off, sulking.

Our neighbors eager for food and attention.

Our love for animals is closely entwined with our love for humans. A biological fixture of brain processing that programs us not merely to notice but care. I loved watching the cows climb the tractor, but what gripped me most was the fear they might fall.

We long to reach across that which connects us, to have them see us as we see them. Can you imagine how lonely the world would be were there no animals? Where would we be without pets, livestock, or the creatures we imagine inhabiting highland rainforests?

Hewn from the same heart fibers that brought us Doris Lessing's triptych of essays on the feline companions to Mary Oliver's melodies of love for her canine soulmates is Rosamund Young's genial The Secret Life of Cows. Stories sopped from the rich overflow of life on a herd, love, jealousy, anger, and everything in between. Young gives us anecdotes that "weave in and out of one another to form narratives" of friendship, family, and richly developed characters who happen to be of the bovine variety.

Like Black Araminta, a heifer just like any other...

One could say that Black Araminta was a heifer just like any other. It would not be true, but it is the case that we did not realise what she was made of until she had to face adversity. She broke a bone in her leg - fortunately, and it seems strange to use that word, only thirty yards from the house. This made the task of nursing her much easier than it might have been. After all the other cows had grazed their way into an adjoining field, we noticed her standing on her own. She did not look at all distressed; she just did not move, and as it turned out she did not move for the next six weeks. She ate and drank enthusiastically and she could lie down and stand up but she made no attempt to go forwards or backwards. Like almost every other animal, Black Araminta responded beautifully to kindness, and the one exception to this that I remember was her own very last calf, Gemima, whom we had to restrain at two months old so that we could treat a cut foot. Gemima never-I mean never - forgave what she regarded as demeaning- and impertinence.

Along with her partner and brother, Rosamund Young owns Kite's Nest Farm, a 390 acreage in Broadway, Cotswolds that produces beef and lamb for sale in their farm shop and is managed in harmony with nature. 

Managed "in harmony with nature" means nature is left to its own devices. Cows are free to roam, maintain families, and, as we see, can pick and choose their own company.

Rosa Bonheur's cattle drawings. Bonheur was a gifted realist painter of animals, especially horses, who dressed (she had to ask permission to wear pants) and painted like her male counterparts and thus was given more attention and success. Learn more.

There is no denying that these animals are more than a way of life; they are a means of life. Farming is, undeniably, a hardship post. Speaking to our friend who owns the cows, not only does he work every day, every hour of every day, he awakes in the knowledge that he is part of a long, long line of men and women who did the same. And that he might be the end: unsure to whom to pass the farm but equally unsure how to let go. Our rental, and a few others he owns, is his pension money. "There is no retirement in farming," he reminds us.

Long-time farmer and poet Wendell Berry distills the growing difficulty of his profession:

Success in farming is increasingly measured in terms of output. High output figures are recorded and success is assumed if a female animal produces a large number of offspring within a short space of time. However, what is not taken into account is the fact that the almost constantly pregnant mother might well have a reduced lifespan and will not have the opportunity to pass on to her progeny her own accumulated wisdom because of unnatural, forced weaning strategies. This increases the chances that future generations will be less knowledgeable and less well-equipped to deal with maturity or motherhood themselves. This is farming for the short term.
FROM WENDELL BERRY'S OUR ONLY WORLD

Sussex farmland and River Arun floodplain in January. Cows are removed from the fields and put into the barns this time of year.

The Kite's Nest Farm discontinued producing milk commercially in 1974, allowing the farmers to treat the herd with a more relaxed hand. When that sort of freedom is given to the cows, they begin to act and behave in a natural way, to dramatic effect:

Jake did have one vice. It was not, however, a vice normally associated with bovines: he loved sniffing the carbon monoxide fumes from the Land Rover exhaust pipe. At first, we did not notice what he was doing. We were accustomed to driving into the fields, loaded to the eaves with bales of hay; ten at least inside and two or three tied on the roof rack. If it was a cold day, as so often, I would leave the engine ticking over while I leapt out to spread a bale, trying to dodge the eager heads and horns, and feet. Then I would jump back in and drive forward, repeating the trick at intervals and making sure the hay was fairly distributed over a largish area so that the smaller and more timid animals had plenty of flakes to choose from and were not intimidated by those more self-assured.

Jake would see us coming, stroll over to the back left-hand corner of the Land Rover and breathe in the fumes in ecstasy. We realised what he was doing only when one day in his enthusiasm, he started to rub his head on the bumper while still breathing in the fumes. He seemed to get carried away, and the Land Rover began to rock from side to side. Our verbal remonstrations were to no avail, and when I got out to persuade him physically to stop I saw what he was doing. After that, we always turned the engine off, however cold the weather.

I am a couple of generations removed from farming as a way of life. My grandparents were not farmers but they grew up around it, and felt the web of inheritance. Farming makes sense to me emotionally and intellectually. Of mainly German and English stock who settled in Nebraska and Michigan. Unsmiling families, square shoulders, raw cheeks, and clear, deep-set eyes. I grew up near a landscape of corn and cows, the kind of rolling horizons you inherit in your mind and wake to in your imagination for the rest of your life.

The relationships between animals are similar to those between humans, profoundly individual and unique yet mapping to patterns, mother/daughter, sisters, and friendships. Doris Lessing wrote the same kind of anecdotes but about cats, my favorite was her story about a cat who was too full of beauty to tend to her kitten. I was amazed to see a similar mother/child complexity in Young's stories but the other way around.

Every day for more than a month now I have been watching a grooming routine take place outside the kitchen window. Laura and her son emerge from their night quarters as soon as the weather tempts them forth and invariably pause within my view for half an hour while mother meticulously grooms son. When she has finished she asks him to groom her in return. He tries hard to refuse and usually succeeds. Laura lowers her head and pushes him gently; you can almost see the look of disbelief and boredom on his face. He moves away a few inches; she stretches her head towards him. Once in a while he will give her two licks and then stop. She tries every tactic; he remains unmoved. After a time she will bunt his dewlap and push him a bit harder. He bestows one more lick and then asks her to groom him again. At first she refuses but she always gives in. The performance is repeated day after day.

Cows storming a Scottish golf course. All play paused until they had met their desired end: to eat on the sunny grass. Photograph by Ellen Vrana.

Young's most exciting stories come from her observations of calves and their mothers.

Relationships between mothers and calves are often complicated and fascinating. Some mothers are mild and bossed about by their calves; some are overbearing; others too casual. But perhaps two of the more interesting stories concerned Dolly and Dolly II and Stephanie and Olivia.

Stephanie and her daughter Olivia enjoyed a normal, close relationship and went everywhere together until Olivia had her first calf. When the calf was due to be born, Stephanie advised and comforted Olivia and helped her choose a good spot to calve, close to clear, running water. Stephanie settled herself down at a handy but not intrusive fifty-yard distance. Olivia calved without difficulty and was immediately besotted by her beautiful cream-coloured bull calf, whom we named Orlando. She licked him dry, suckled him and quite simply doted on him. Stephanie came along a couple of hours later to be introduced and grazed nearby for the next few days, hoping to be a useful and integral part of the threesome. As young calves spend a great deal of time sleeping in the first few days, grandmothers are often useful for babysitting. Sometimes cows who are not related are called on to babysit. It is quite common for one cow to look after several calves at once, but the job allocation is done democratically and cows take it in turns.

Sadly, Olivia did not want Stephanie's services. She did not wish to stir from Orlando's side. She ate as close to him as possible and whenever he moved she followed. She even refused her mother's offer of grooming. She ignored her shamefully. On the fourth day Stephanie's patience broke. Hurt and amazed, she turned tail, jumped the nearest fence and went off into another field to graze with her erstwhile friends.

To the best of my knowledge they never spoke to each other again.

What does it feel like to be a cow? Is there heartache? Jealousy? Does it feel more like being a human than we are comfortable admitting? Or is primatologist Frans de Waal correct when he argues that our understanding of animals is limited by our boundaries of empathy? 

But we do not need understanding to feel love:

When Wizzie, also an Ayrshire, had her second calf (a chunky, pretty, short-legged strawberry roan heifer called Meg), she told her daughter she was the best and the calf believed her. Once winter set in and mud became an everyday problem, Meg made it clear that she hated getting her mahogany-coloured feet dirty. Somehow she managed to negotiate the steep flight of a dozen narrow, Cotswold-stone steps up to the granary and early one frosty-cold morning we watched her come out onto the top step, yawn and look around to see if it was worth getting up - i.e. coming down. She had spent the night in great comfort on the wooden granary floor, away from mud and draughts and bullying. We had left the granary door open because we knew that no bovine could possibly climb the steps. Subsequently, she taught two friends the same trick and we used to put hay and water upstairs for them.

Of course, I say, "Farming makes sense to me," and what I mean is I could see wanting to do it much more than being a firefighter or an accountant. But I could never actually do it. To be face to face with the complexity of loving something, caring for it, and then knowing it was also your way of life and had to die as part of the relationship, I am too weak for that. I'm the generation-removed version of a farmer, with little consequence and no problematic decisions: a gardener. But I do love animals, caring for them, observing them. 

As Young clearly does and must do for their sake.

All animals are individuals. Some will impress their characters on you, while some will glide through life keeping a low profile. The better you know an animal the more use you can be to it. If you know how it is likely to react in various circumstances you can be prepared. If you observe how it communicates everyday needs you can interpret unusual situations far more effectively. The observations we have made quite often have no relevance to the everyday lives of animals. It is likely that even more interesting and significant things occur when we are not there at all.

There are those who love cows. There are those who see more than a beast in a field.

What about Lydia Davis, a short short story writer of exceptional individuality whose "The Cows" is pure love: "Each new day, when they come out from the far side of the barn, it is like the next act or the start of an entirely new play". 

Or Ursula Le Guin who credits her must-read-aloud poem of cows to the fact that "I have always wanted to keep a cow, a Jersey." We want the best aspects handed to us anecdotally, the love of animals, the rewarding labor, and interaction with Earth. And yet we are removed from the nature of things, the nature of cows. The nature of cows, any farmer will tell you, is more than we think but above all much like any large herbivores: they spend most of their day eating.