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I was out for a walk along the coast when I stumbled upon a surreal sight: two luxury coaches wedged tight in a remote parking lot, and forty or so people clustered together, singing to a field of cows. To say I was taken aback would be an understatement.
I paused by a picnic bench to listen as they enthusiastically worked their way through a couple of tunes, until a voice called out that it was time to move on. As they filed past me toward the coaches, I caught the eye of a friendly-looking couple and asked a simple question: “Why are you in the middle of nowhere, singing to a herd of cows?”
They laughed, and the gentleman replied, “Why not? We’re a choir from New York, made up of retirees, singing our way around Ireland.” His friend jumped in—first to point out that he might be from New York, but she was definitely from New Jersey, and second, that if they couldn’t come to Ireland and sing to a field of cows, what was the point of being retired?
I wished them a good trip as they boarded. The coaches pulled away, and I waved goodbye, getting a flurry of happy hands in return. Quiet returned to the viewpoint. I sat there a while, alone with the cattle, turning her answer over in my mind. Fair point, I thought, maybe that’s a great way to think about retirement. Set the financial side on autopilot and get on with following your dreams: even if that happens to include flying across the Atlantic Ocean to serenade a herd of Irish bovines.
I shouldered my backpack and walked on—recently retired myself, following my own small dream of a coastal walk on a midweek morning.
I know cows do love music. A few decades ago I was given a tour of a 500-cow dairy farm that had all the modern conveniences, including scales that weighed the milk produced by each cow. Music played throughout the mostly mechanical milking process and the workers had come to know what kind of music seemed correlated with higher production. Classical, as I recall, not country. Don’t know how the cows feel about a choir of retired New Yorkers singing to them, but I hope they listened politely if they didn’t applaud 😊
Linda, the nice lady who insisted she was from New Jersey rather than New York did make the observation that two of the cows lay down during the performance: she took that as a hopeful sign of bovine approval. 😁
I agree with the lady from NJ.
What a great idea. Count me in on singing to the livestock; maybe they won’t mind my horrible voice.
“By the light, of the silvery mooooooooooooooon”