Why goodbyes are so hard
While I started this blog and website to celebrate cattle, nature, environmental history, and land preservation as it pertains to the Florida landscape, no matter how much beauty I see, or how much I know relationships must end, it never seems to lessen the deep sadness I feel when my rancher friend comes to gather the young heifers and bulls. Perhaps it is because I did not grow up surrounded by the everchanging cycle of life, death, and hope renewed in the small promises found in each calving season. But the truth is, the evolution of the herd only serves as a reminder of the dualistic way I engage with nature or - more specifically, what I perceive as the “natural” environment- and this includes pastoral settings.
However, this “natural” environment, the lovely pasture that is home to a small herd of bewitching bovines, in reality is simply a parcel of land. Magickal to me because I somehow chose to frame it as what the renown environmental historian William Cronon, posits as "the “edge areas” - a demarcations between developed and undeveloped territory that only serves to underscore the way society views (and takes) ownership of land. Although Cronon’s work examines the complex relationships between colonial New Englanders, Indigenous people, and land ownership / use, one could argue the same assertion applies to those of us residing in the Eden-like state of Florida.
Admittedly, my hometown of Fort Lauderdale is a perfect example of how people view the city as yachts, parties, towering condominiums, and clear blue water. yet, just like the Treasure Coast, my memories of that 36.6 square miles of paradise includes vast open spaces covered with tomato and blueberry fields, butted up against the brackish mystery called the everglades. so, in many ways my emotional attachment to Fort Lauderdale mirrors henry David Thoreau’s mourning the loss of Walden. and now, so does the removal of a few of my beloved cows (5, to be exact).
my bewitching bovines, and their little 40-acre pasture, forces me to realize just how much I am living “outside” of nature, as opposed to, “in” nature. This leaves me unsettled and grappling with unanswered questions about human interaction and ecosystems. Farming, Ranching, small homesteads, are all part of this symbiotic and chaotic swirl that create a distinction that has as much to do with modern society as it does with the different ways we belong to nature and each other.
And more often than not, this belonging includes saying goodbye.
And I did so - with many tears - along with a horrid rendition of one of @jonnajinton Swedish cow herding songs (Kulning).
