Cow Chips: Cool, Clear Water

While the cows were in the St. George field they had access to the Santa Clara River to get water. Although in reality the Santa Clara River is nothing more than a creek in the summer time the water flowing there is plentiful and clear. One would think that this readily available water would be sufficient to keep the cows watered; however, I was somewhat surprised when the cows started fighting over a small leak in one of the wheel line risers.

One morning when I went to feed at the St. George field I noticed several cows congregated around one of the wheel line risers out in the hay field. As I got closer I could see that there was a large area around the riser that looked wet where the cows were trampling the hay out. I walked over to investigate and sure enough there was a small trickle of water coming from the riser. There were some cows that were so interested in the water and chasing each other away from the water that they paid no attention to me until I was within a few feet of them. Even then I had to shoo them away so that I could get a closer look at my leak. The cows that I shooed off did not go far, they were thirsty. The leak that I found would have probably taken two days to produce enough water for a single cow, yet here the cows were, fighting over the leak. There is a creek flowing with plentiful living water and the cows spend all day fighting over the water coming from a leak in a riser. As they fought over the trickle of water coming from the riser they were destroying a large patch of alfalfa. They were not concerned at all about the destruction that they were causing because they were so focused on the trickle of water, ignoring the plentiful water available to them in the creek.

How often do we get sidetracked by a trickle of water? There have been times in my life that I became so focused on what was going on right in the moment that I neglected what was going on around me. Once again the cows have brought to my attention a life altering lesson to be learned. We do that in our lives as well, however, for the most part the destruction is related to our relationships. As we fixate on what is right in front of us we fail to see the damage and destruction that we cause to those who are close to us. There have been times when work, school, hobbies, even the farm have caused me to fixate on something to a point where my family has suffered. Watching the cows I recognized this in a way that I had not seen it before.