Belonging To A Place
Long, long ago, in early November, I thought I would use the time between Thanksgiving and New Years to begin writing again and posting on the blog again and, well, life took me in a different direction. Honestly, I feel like I’ve been in a year-long acid trip. I have completely surrendered to it. And I’ve been enjoying it… even the dances with my dragons. It’s been a very deep, profoundly revealing exploration of my psyche that began, I suppose, when I asked the question, ‘who am I without Charlie?’
I was also planning to spend the winter promoting Meditations with Cows, leading up to the paperback release in February. Self promotion is hard for me in the best of times. It’s even more challenging during a worldwide pandemic while in the midst of a pseudo-psychedelic expedition. But this book is incredibly important to me—more specifically, the words that fill this book matter to me, and I want to share those words. So I’m going to share an entire chapter on social media.
This chapter takes place during the summer I spent living off-grid on the mountain with the cows… which happens to be another time in my life when I felt unable to share the profundity of the moment in the moment, being too immersed in living it. Writing this chapter for Meditations with Cows was the first time I wrote about *why* that summer was so lifechanging for me.
I’m so excited to be able to share this chapter with you. I’ll be sharing it in serial form, a little every day. You can follow along @dailycoyote on twitter or instagram. {If you like what you read, I hope you’ll share or retweet some of my posts, tag me so I can see and smile!}
And yes, the paperback is finally almost here. I prefer paperbacks—they’re just so pleasant to hold while reading. I almost always wait for the paperback release to buy books for myself and others. If you feel similarly, the time has arrived!
This is also a great time to talk to your library to request they acquire a copy, since paperbacks are more budget-friendly than hardcovers. My publisher did not skimp on this paperback though—they’ve printed it IN FULL COLOR! I’m so thrilled, all the photographs and design elements are beautifully printed in color, just like the hardbound edition.
Storytime begins today! See you on twitter and instagram.
Meditations With Cows
If this summer had not been this summer and if I had not been in frantic survival mode for the past six months, I would have done a long, slow rollout leading up to the debut of my new book, Meditations with Cows. But it was, and I didn’t, and my book is going to be REAL in two short weeks! So buckle up and grab a drink, I have like 1500 words for you about the 70,000 words I spent almost two years writing!
The short version: I’m so thrilled to announce that Meditations with Cows will arrive in the world on September 29 and you can order it now! Signed copies are available through my local indie bookstore for orders placed in September ONLY. You can order signed copies HERE. You can also get the book through Amazon or Bookshop. All preorders placed in September will receive a free gift – more info on this below.
Meditations with Cows is the most personal thing I’ve ever written, the most political thing I’ve ever written, and the most well-written thing I’ve ever written. If you’ve been reading my blog for years, you’ll recognize some stories, but most of it is completely new. I put every last drop of my heart and soul into this book. The team at Penguin Random House has done an incredible job with the layout – it’s absolutely gorgeous, with full-color photographs placed throughout the text.
In May, I submitted a chapter of Meditations with Cows to the Wyoming Arts Council Writing Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction and…… I WON! I really, really wanted to win. Not for the money or the prestige, but for the external validation – to know that this book was of a high enough caliber to win.
When I got the final manuscript, I gave it to Mike to read for the first time. He had read sections here and there, but never the whole thing. He read it three times in a row, back to back. And he said that every time he read it, he noticed more and more – little details resonated and clicked on subsequent readings. It’s true – there are puzzle pieces in the first few chapters that you won’t know are there until you read the whole book. This book is FUN and it is DEEP. I’m so proud of it.
The last “real” book I wrote, The Daily Coyote, came out six weeks after the financial crash of 2008. Now, Meditations with Cows is coming out during a global pandemic and an even worse financial crisis. What are the odds? When I think about this, I feel very sad and sorry for myself. My heart has hurt for everyone who has had a book published this year. To spend so much time and energy working on One Big Thing (often alone, often mired in insecurity) and then, when it’s finally ready to share, to be confronted with the reality that many, many people are too stressed to notice that your book even exists brings a strange kind of pain. The pain feels a little selfish, or at least self absorbed, because our current reality is bringing much bigger pain to so many. But it’s also a valid pain – I didn’t write this book for my own gratification, I wrote it because I believe everything this book contains is worthy of being read and shared.
What keeps me from sinking too deep into despair is a very strong conviction (hope? delusion?) that this book will be one that travels through word of mouth. I really believe that when you read this book, you’ll find yourself compelled to talk about it to someone you know, or post a passage to social media, or call someone to read them a paragraph – that people will talk about this book because they won’t be able to stop thinking about it. And that more people will learn about the book through this kind of sharing than through a feature in People Magazine (as was the case with The Daily Coyote).
I feel like I’m getting carried away in a sales pitch and I don’t mean to be – I just think this book is worth your $25. And if, like so many, you don’t have a spare $25 right now, you can call or email your local library to request that they acquire a copy of Meditations with Cows. Requests help librarians and they help the book.
If you would like to order a copy for yourself (or for your library or for your friends), I’ve got links for you!
Signed copies are available through Storyteller Books in Thermopolis, Wyoming and you can order online HERE. Signed books will ONLY be available for orders placed in the next three weeks! This is because Storyteller Books is the closest bookstore to my house, yet it is still 70 miles away and I can’t zip down there to sign books here and there indefinitely. So, if you’d like a signed copy, place your order RIGHT NOW! Storyteller Books is offering a 10% discount for all orders placed online HERE. During checkout, be sure to click “Order Comments” and type “SIGNED BOOK” in the message field. You may also include your name, or the names of those to whom you are gifting books, and I will personalize each copy. No need to place separate orders for multiple books UNLESS you want books shipped to different addresses.
The book is also available through Bookshop, which is like Amazon in that you can find every book you can think of and have it shipped to your door, but unlike Amazon, all sales support indie bookstores. Click HERE to order through Bookshop.
You can also get the book through Amazon HERE.
The audiobook is also available through Amazon and Bookshop, and is read by the same narrator as The Daily Coyote.
Here’s what early readers have to say about the book:
“How wonderful it is to come across the extraordinary magic of Shreve Stockton’s writing. She writes from a position of authenticity and great love. Her intelligence and sensitivity suffuse everything from the way she describes the personalities of her cows to the much needed lessons on grazing and pastureland. With her work rooted in the land itself, Stockton presents a vivid picture of Wyoming to readers who may not otherwise know or understand what a working ranch is like. Meditations with Cows will enchant and thrill every reader, and arrives at a critical time when understanding each other is vital and crucial to our survival.”
—Marie Mutsuki Mockett, author of American Harvest
“In Meditations with Cows, readers will find themselves in a beautiful world, led on an exploration that connects them back to the land, back to their food, and ultimately, back to themselves. With tales of ranching in the West, a wealth of information about our food system, and an invitation to participate, Meditations with Cows weaves together so many important threads. Stockton is a master wordsmith, the modern Aldo Leopold and Wendell Berry I’d been looking for.”
—Kate Kavanaugh, founder of Western Daughters Butcher Shop and Ground Work Collective
“Meditations with Cows takes you on a provocative and thoughtful journey through the best and worst parts of the modern food system. The relentless forces of industry and profit are straining the biosphere and the relationship with our animal kin, winding up for explosive change in the way we eat. Stockton and Daisy’s story is at once an intimate memoir and an epic journey through this unique moment in human history.”
—Jacy Reese Anthis, author of The End of Animal Farming
“Meditations with Cows is enchanting and profound. Shreve Stockton is a clear-eyed, fearless woman with an enormous heart—her insights on rural life are spot-on, unsentimental, and unfailingly appreciative of the bounties attending the life she has built with rigor and ardor. Don’t miss this book.”
—Peter Coyote, actor and author of Sleeping Where I Fall
I am so excited for you to read this book, and to hear what your favorite chapters are.
The Long and Winding and Beautiful and Tragic Story of 3M ~ Part VII
Previous Installments: Part I / Part II / Part III / Part IV / Intermission / Part V / Part VI
A week went by. A week of mornings and evenings that had lost their sparkle, that felt somber and empty. Star Baby no longer had adult cow companionship in the little corral. 3M, now orphaned, was often curled up by herself. Star Baby’s baby figured out how to get out of the corral and left whenever she wanted, to explore and play with the other calves, returning only for meals. She was also getting big enough to empty Star Baby’s udder by herself and there was less and less milk for 3M each passing day. I found where Star Baby’s baby was escaping and purposefully locked her out of the corral, blocking her return until Star Baby’s udder refilled and 3M had gotten first dibs. But when her calf showed up to eat and couldn’t get in the corral, Star Baby stood right next to the panels so her calf could nurse through the railings. As patient and generous as Star Baby had been for the past month – going into the head catch twice a day on cue, standing calmly while 3M nursed, never once kicking (unless 3M tried to nurse when Star Baby was out of the head catch) – her loyalty was to her calf and it always would be. From the start, I knew Star Baby would be a temporary wet nurse, that eventually, her own calf would get big enough and greedy enough to take all the milk she produced. This arrangement was reaching its expiration date.
Meanwhile, Fiona still hadn’t calved. She was the only cow left to calve. A few days after 6 died, I was brushing Fiona and felt her calf moving inside her. A protruding lump rose in a gentle yet startling wave under my hand and disappeared. It was thrilling. But the only other time I’d felt a calf move in utero was with Roxy, and so even though my control group was exactly one, I was suddenly paranoid that Fiona’s calf would also be breech. Later that week, when Fiona was standing off by herself and I knew she would calve that day, I lured her into the front yard so I could watch her easily. Fiona went into labor a few hours later and when her water broke, I collected as much of her jelly-like amniotic fluid as I could and put it in the fridge. I had plans for it. I was overjoyed when her calf’s hooves emerged because they showed the calf was not breech. Everything about the delivery went smoothly and Fiona delivered her baby right in my lap – the second time she’s done this.
Fiona and her calf spent the rest of the day and that night together in the yard. I wanted to be sure they bonded completely. The next day, I put a tiny calf halter on 3M and threw open the gates of the little corral so Star Baby could rejoin the herd and her wandering calf. Before she sauntered off, Star Baby approached me and licked my elbow. It was the most affection she’s ever shown a human. Then off she went, and I walked 3M to the yard to join Fiona and her newborn. Though 3M was a month older than Fiona’s calf, they were exactly the same size because 3M had been so small when she was born. I got the amniotic fluid from the fridge and poured it all over 3M and rubbed it into her coat in hopes of tricking Fiona. Cows know their calves by sight and sound but a key identifier is scent, and if 3M smelled like Fiona, perhaps Fiona would adopt her right away! I stood at Fiona’s flank and stroked the side of her udder. 3M galloped over and reached out with a tentative tongue. Fiona was not into it. She was not fooled by the amniotic goo bath I’d given 3M and she was not going to let 3M nurse, so I had to pull out the ol’ Maia trick and blindfold her.
Mike and I stumbled onto this trick years ago out of sheer frustration with Maia (who is still a giant pain) and though we don’t use it often, it’s a brilliant, low-impact intervention. It’s easy, it’s temporary, it requires no equipment other than a jacket or flannel shirt, and it’s not traumatizing to the cow, as evidenced by their willingness to be blindfolded over and over and the fact that they chew their cud while blindfolded. Chewing cud is kind of like yawning – animals simply won’t do it if they’re in acute stress.
I took off my coat and placed it over Fiona’s face and tied the arms loosely under her chin. Her nose remained exposed, and I stood between her head and 3M’s body so Fiona would smell mostly me while 3M went to town on Fiona’s decadent udder, feasting till she was about to burst. As Daisy’s daughter, Fiona makes a lot of milk. She has produced incrementally more milk with each passing year, which is a little weird, but perhaps has something to do with her being a dairy-angus cross. Last year, the volume of milk had been manageable for her calf, but barely. It had been almost too much for a single calf. This year, I knew she’d have enough milk for two calves.
But I wasn’t sure if Fiona would ever fully adopt 3M the way Daisy has adopted second and third calves in years past. I had high hopes, especially since we were introducing 3M immediately after Fiona had calved. Still, I wanted 3M to learn how to get her own meals from Fiona without my help, in case Fiona never fully accepted her. Bovines have excellent memories and are brilliant at understanding patterns. I just had to show 3M the new routine a time or two for her to catch on – and not only catch on, but to start manipulating the situation in her favor.
I set up a playpen of sorts using two panels and the natural curve of the wooden fence. I put Fiona’s calf in the playpen at night so he wouldn’t nurse early in the morning before I got up. In the morning, I put the blindfold on Fiona and let her calf out of the playpen. He ran to Fiona, and as soon as he latched on, I coaxed 3M to Fiona’s other side, and stood between her body and Fiona’s head. Fiona sniffed her calf and sniffed me and that satisfied her, and she stood calmly as both calves nursed. I repeated this in the evening – putting Fiona’s calf in the playpen for a few hours in the afternoon, and coordinating a mutual mealtime with 3M.
3M is scrappy and resourceful and strategic and determined and clever. She already knew that when I showed up, I was going to help her get a meal. Over the following days, as soon as I let Fiona’s calf out of the playpen, both calves ran to Fiona and latched on – one on each side. 3M soon figured out that if she snuck onto a teat when Fiona’s calf nursed in the middle of the day, she didn’t need me around at all. If Fiona balked, 3M moved to the same side as Fiona’s calf, with Fiona’s calf positioned between herself and Fiona’s head so Fiona couldn’t really tell she was there.
One morning, I took Fiona’s blindfold off before the calves had finished their breakfast. Fiona arced her head to one side and sniffed her calf, and arced her head to the other side and sniffed 3M, then straightened her head to the front and began chewing her cud – the universal cow sign that all is well and there’s nothing to stress about. The next morning, I put the blindfold on, the calves ran to Fiona and latched on, and I removed the blindfold a mere thirty seconds later. Fiona looked left, looked right, looked front, and chewed her cud. After that, I stopped putting Fiona’s calf in the playpen at all. And when I went outside, I’d often find all three together, both calves nursing, Fiona standing peacefully. One day, I went outside and found Fiona licking 3M, just as she does with her own calf, just like 6 used to do.
When I saw Fiona licking 3M, I knew they were a family. 3M and Fiona’s calf are still exactly the same size, and they race around the yard together and buck and play. If you didn’t know the whole story, you’d think Fiona had twins. But you know the whole story: the long and winding and beautiful and tragic and truly magical story of 3M.
The Long and Winding and Beautiful and Tragic Story of 3M ~ Part VI
Previous Installments: Part I / Part II / Part III / Part IV / Intermission / Part V
After she grazed my garden, after the corral dried out, we moved 6 back to the corral because we were afraid she might lie down between the raised beds and get stuck. We wanted her to be comfortable and we wanted her to be safe and we wanted her to be with 3M. Sitting in the mud and the rain with 6, I had begged her to “don’t die yet.” Yet. Yet. I knew it was coming. We all knew it was coming.
She created her perfect baby calf and she delivered her calf safely into the world and then she started declining. The day after she calved, it was as if she took a deep breath, thought to herself, “I did it,” and let go. She got visibly thinner daily, and she was already so thin. She got visibly weaker daily, and she was already so weak. By the end of April, when she started having trouble getting up (even when rainstorms and mud were not part of the equation), there was no denying it was just a matter of time, a daily countdown, a waiting game. Except it wasn’t a game.
When she couldn’t get up at all, we carried water to her in a five gallon bucket. We brought her hay. We gave her everything we could – water, food, assistance, peace, space, gratitude. 3M slept beside her, or stood at her head while 6 licked her from where she lay. 3M still scampered back to 6 after getting her meals from Star Baby, and 6 licked her slowly and methodically from chin to hock as she’d done since their first hour together. These two together… 3M, content and carefree. 6, stoic and doting.
She died in the night. A warm, calm night with moonlight. Mike took her body away at dawn, so when I went out to do my morning chores with the corral crew, 6 was gone. I put Star Baby in the head catch and fed her treats while 3M nursed, and 6 wasn’t there and she wouldn’t be there ever again. The corral seemed so much emptier without her presence. 3M finished her morning meal and 6 wasn’t there to lick her as she always had. I grabbed a curry comb and brushed 3M’s little body – her forehead, her cheeks, her neck, her chest, her back, her sides, her flanks, her belly. She stood with her eyes half closed and leaned against me as I brushed her. From that morning on, I brushed 3M after every meal.
This was a hard one for me. They’re all hard – every death on the ranch is hard. This one was intense and lingering. Sadness stuck to me. I was sad for 6, I was sad for 3M, I was sad for the abrupt ending to our beautiful routine (which was never going to last forever, even if 6 had lived), I was sad because Death changes everything with its dark alchemy. My frustration and confusion resurfaced as it does with every death – frustration that death is part of the deal at all, confusion over why it was designed that way.
6 had the best life of any cow – she was granted care and independence and safety and respect from the first day of her life to the last. And hers was the best death any of us could hope for – peacefully at home, surrounded by kin, knowing her baby was going to be cared for after she was gone. How many cows get to die of old age? I can tell you it’s way, way less than 1%. I joke with Mike that we work so hard every day for so little money, but our cows are the 1% of cows.
Everything is temporary. I knew this. 6 was dying from the day she gave birth. I knew this. 3M was born on April 13th; 6 died on May 3. Twenty days. Those magic mornings and evenings lasted for twenty days. The motley cow crew in the little corral were together for twenty days. 3M was twenty days old when she lost her mother. It was only twenty days. I was in awe of the time we had together, that little pocket of time and togetherness and cooperation and appreciation and being. The grace of that time. The grace of 6.
Up next: The Finale. Miracles and synchronicity have been part of The Long and Winding and Beautiful and Tragic Story of 3M since the very beginning, and one more is coming up. I’m reluctant to call it a happy ending because that seems a little dismissive of and disrespectful to 6, plus I don’t think life is about happy endings. I think it’s about happy, wondrous moments in between devastating moments in between tedious moments in between scary moments in between thrilling moments and, if we’re lucky, a whole lot of love swirled into all of it. In such a spiral, where is the ending?
The Long and Winding and Beautiful and Tragic Story of 3M ~ Part V
Previous Installments: Part I / Part II / Part III / Part IV / Intermission
Rain. Our single, four letter word for ‘water falling from the sky’ is grossly inadequate. There should be more words. Seattle rain and Wyoming rain are as related and dissimilar as chihuahua and wolf. Wyoming rain is the wolf. It can appear, seemingly from out of nowhere, and surprise you dangerously. It can be terrifyingly violent. Despite this, people tend to react to it with uncontrollable reverence. For without rain, there is no grass.
When it rains in Wyoming, it’s like a giant barrel being dumped out from the heavens. It’s like a blizzard with water in its liquid state. Wyoming rain comes down hard and fast, each raindrop as long and thick as your finger. The clay-laden earth can’t handle such deluge, and so the water stands in enormous puddles, runs rapids down the driveway, and the top six inches of ground becomes sticky, slicky gumbo – clay mud that can eat shoes and is nearly as treacherous as ice. The first time I lost control of my Bronco was not on ice, but in Wyoming mud.
Still, these torrential downpours don’t fill water troughs for the cows – that was my job. And calves are hungry no matter the weather, and 3M needed my help with Star Baby. Mike had left, and when I finished my coffee, I put on my ankle-length snow skirt which I hadn’t touched since deep winter and a rain slicker with a hood and my Muck boots (every day, my muck boots) and slopped out to 6 and 3M and Star Baby and her calf. My trudging turned to sprinting when I saw 6 was down and thrashing. She was lying on her side in the mud, legs splayed and kicking the air. When I reached her, I was horrified to see she had gotten her head stuck under the bottom rail of one of the corral panels. She was writhing and flailing and frothing at the mouth. She’d been trying to rescue herself for a while – who knows how long. I splashed to the barn and grabbed a lariat (aka a stiff lasso rope, which neither Mike nor I know how use in the way it’s intended), got the loop around her neck, and pushed it as far down as I could, down to the thick base of her neck where it meets her chest and shoulders. I heaved and pulled with all my might and managed to slide 6 away from the panel and free her head. The slipperiness of the mud is the only reason I was able to do this – even old and frail, she still weighed in at close to a thousand pounds.
She immediately began struggling to stand, but she couldn’t. When a cow gets up, she rocks a little to launch herself up and onto her feet. Imagine getting yourself out of an oversized plush chair – you’d rock back a little, then push yourself forward and out with the extra momentum. Cows do exactly this when they stand up. And cows can kill themselves trying to get up when they’re stuck – if they’re mired in mud, if they’re up against a wall without enough room to rock back and forth onto their feet. They will try over and over and over until they die of exhaustion.
Before we moved the head catch up to the new barn, I had it in the corner of Daisy’s little milking barn where Frisco spent the last weeks of his life. The head catch was set two feet from the back wall, bolted to posts six inches in diameter that were set two feet in the ground. On one of my countless trips to the barn when I was caring for Frisco, I found him on the ground, kicking and rocking next to the head catch. He had laid down so close to the head catch that he couldn’t get up – there wasn’t enough room for him to get enough momentum to stand up. When I found him, he was drenched in sweat from trying. Mike was two hours away, so I found a crowbar and a giant wrench and dismantled the iron panels of the head catch as quickly as I could and (thanks to adrenaline) moved them out of the way. Frisco was then able to stand up and take a long drink of water.
6 must have laid down under the small awning of the barn where the dirt gently slopes away from the wall – as dry a place as possible, but on such a day, with sideways rain, not dry at all. The degree of the decline is an unremarkable grade, not something I ever really noticed, not something that would adversely affect any other cow, perhaps not even 6 on any other day. But this day, the slope had been perilous. Either because of the direction she chose to lay down, or because she slid a little when she first tried to get up, 6 was positioned so that her body and head were downhill from her legs and hooves. She not only had to rock, she had to rock uphill. 6 was already weak because she was so old – for the past few days, she had been having some trouble rocking up to standing even when it was dry and perfectly flat. To fight against gravity, too? And the mud, too? She couldn’t do it. And as she struggled, she slid closer to the corral panel, and when she tired, she lay her head on the ground, and this is how she ended up with her head under the railing.
After I swiveled her around and freed her head, I tried to help 6 sit up with her head up, but she was too weak and exhausted to hold it up. She just kept thrashing around on the ground. There was already a raw patch of skin on her bottom shoulder where she had worn all the hair off in her struggles. So I did the only thing I could: I sat beside her with my hands on her head and face. As long as I was touching her, she lay still. I didn’t dare run back to the house to get my phone to call Mike – when I moved away from her, 6 started convulsing in attempts to get up and I didn’t know how much longer she could fight before expiring. I wasn’t willing to risk it. So I stayed with her in the mud in the pouring rain, waiting for Mike to return. I sobbed hysterically and talked to her through the downpour. “Don’t die. Not now. Not today. Not in the rain. Don’t die yet, don’t do it, please….” Her eye, the one I could see, was wild. It bulged out and then sank into her skull and I was sure she was going to perish in the storm as I pet her cheek.
When Mike got home, he found us in the mud and quickly rearranged a few of the panels between the corral and my garden. My garden stretches out from the chicken house and is right next to the panel corral we made for 3M & Co in front of the barn. It, too, is surrounded by panels because I haven’t had time to build a proper wooden fence around it. Once Mike opened up a passageway between the two, he grabbed one of 6’s hind legs and I pushed her shoulders and together, we slid 6 out of the corral and into my garden. We got her to a level grassy patch and we got her sitting up – lying down but with her head up. She seemed relieved. The only question was whether 6 could get up at all. Would she ever get up again?
After taking care of 3M and Star Baby, who had been huddled in the rain but were perfectly fine, Mike and I returned to the house. I escaped to a hot shower. The rain traveled past us and the sun came out. I nervously peeked out the door at 6 in my garden and she was up! She was standing! She was peacefully grazing the luscious, rogue grass that was already six inches tall between my raised beds. She moved delicately enough that I wasn’t worried about her destroying my garden the way another cow would – she could stay in my garden as long as she liked! She nipped down all the grass and didn’t even touch my raspberries.
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