Sometime in the next week, the last cows – Jon helped birth each one of them – will leave for other farms. I’ll miss them. It is quiet when I am in the barn. They talk to one another, mooing softly, and they nuzzle and lick me and like to have their butts scratched, right near the tail. You can hear the tails swishing and the sound of the manure plopping softly into the concrete trenches. Tubes run to the milk vat, which is white and silky. The light is always moving, and I am always chasing it. The cows cooperate now. At first, they all stared at me. Now, like my dogs, they pose.