I received Burr Morse's newsletter yesterday and as often happens, what he wrote triggered memories for me.  Burr grew up on his family's farm, as I did, and although he's somewhat younger than I, the experiences for farm kids in Vermont haven't changed all that much over the years, I guess.  

Burr writes about holding onto cows' tails for an assist climbing a steep bank or two, and about hitching a ride on one of their Jerseys.  My two Connecticut Cousins and I (my cousins spent summers on the farm during WWII) often let one of the cows give us an assist climbing the hills back to the farm on hot afternoons, without incident.  However, one night as we were taking the cows to the night pasture after milking, we braided the long hairs of two tails together.  It was just something to do as the herd lazily climbed the hill to the pasture.  What we hadn't anticipated was a patch of small trees growing in the lane, where one cow went to the left of a young maple and the other took the path on the right.  The tails tightened, there was a brief struggle and they went on their way, one with considerably less hair on her tail and the other with a bloody hair extension on hers.  We knew we'd be in a lot of trouble if our grandfather found what we thought was probably a good sized piece of one cow's tail attached to another one by a tell-tale braid.  We tried to track which cow was which, but in a herd of 50 or more black and white Holsteins, it was impossible, and when they got to the pasture, they immediately scattered into the evening shadows and we finally had to give up and hope for the best. 

None of us slept very well that night, and first thing in the morning we were all waiting for Grandfather Bolton or one of our uncles (or my father!) to say something.  As I recall, one of them noticed the bloody tail of the cow that lost the pulling contest, but fortunately for us, the braid had released overnight and there was no evidence of our foolish stunt.  Within days I told my father what had happened, and he actually thought it was funny since he could easily tell how upset I was, and my cousins told our Uncle Bob, who was our confidant and ally, being only a few years older we were.  Our consciences were soothed by our confessions, but I'm pretty sure nobody ever told my grandfather.  

As for riding one of those big Holsteins - we talked about it, but as far as I know nobody ever even tried.