There's an underground bureaucracy in the farm lands of America. Its been going on all around us for years, but no one zipping up and down the highways of Americas dairy land in cars even noticed. Thanks to the slower pace of the rider training for a century, this astounding bureaucracy has been uncovered.
I call it the Bird-Bovine Bureaucracy or BBB for short, and here's the basic structure.
I started to believe there was a BBB while riding past pastures during mid-day. When ever I saw cows, I was tall, white birds. Egrets, I think. I'm certain, though, that the large animals are called cows. Sometimes each cow would have one egret standing by her side, other times the birds were plentiful and each cow was allotted two. There were days when the egret supply was low and pairs of cows were forced to share a single bird.
During an organized ride this Spring, more evidence of a BBB emerged. I was out especially early that day when I rode by a dairy herd. The cattle were gathered in a tight group with their heads facing out, butts touching. They were surrounded by dozens of egrets. Was this a rural version of Hollywood auditions which are sometimes referred to as cattle calls? It sure looked as if the egrets were strutting their stuff for the cows. It seems the early bird just gets a job interview nowadays.
As training intensified, I started riding more evening hours, and I noticed small flocks of egrets leaving their jobs in the fields. Could they be car pooling home?
If egrets car pool home, I reasoned, they must car pool to the dairies in the mornings as well. I slipped into my spandex especially early the next morning, convinced I'd uncovered another shred of evidence to prove the existence of a BBB. On my way out of the suburbs to the farms, I got the proof I needed.
An egret, flying overhead, touched down briefly next to a pair of egrets on a grassy patch by the side of the road. All three took off toward their pastoral work place and stayed together while I watched.
You might notice that the egret works very hard, often during lunch hours. Even on Sundays, when cows have the day off, egrets are out there moonlighting with horses and sometimes even with pigs.
Sandra Levy