The bovine sperm bank

And there was me thinking I am so original.  Another illusion bites the dust.  Turns out that Bovinia is also a website selling cows, somewhere in the US.  But they haven't updated their site since 2008, so I feel I am on fairly safe ground should it come to plagiarism - or something. Maybe all their cows died (did they bother to house them in a sturdy barn for the winter?) or maybe they just realised that real farmers only buy their prize heifers at cattle markets.

All this calls to mind a crazy woman I knew in Belgium.  Isabelle had a cow as a pet - and why not indeed - but this wasn't enough.  She wanted a calf.  The cow needed a sire, but Isabelle didn't want to subject her beloved Clover to the fumblings of a local yokel.  So she sent off for a full-colour brochure of pedigree bulls.  All she had to do was select the best genetic match, and a syringe full of his sperm would be sped over the very next morning for the vet to plunge into the unwitting cow.  She pored over the pictures for days, pondering the various advantages of this colour or that.  You know, how would dark red fur - do cattle have fur? - look after seven days of Belgian rain, and so on.  In the end she plumped for a muscular Freesian type.  Kind, well-educated, GSOH.  I think his name was John.  I am glad to say that the match was successful and a healthy calf appeared some months later.  As far as I know he has no desire to trace his birth father - Clover is all he needs in life.

Here in my, aka the real Bovinia, I am still waiting for the first cow to emerge into the spring sunlight.   It can't be long now.  We are promised soaring temperatures for the weekend.  I must stop writing and finalise my tricks for tomorrow morning.  Gaia has already declared a heightened security alert - this means I would be wasting my time by bursting into her room at 5 a.m. to tell her it is ten minutes to seven and what the heck is she still doing in bed.  There are other potential victims, however; none of whom can take a joke, but the amusement factor will be worth any tantrum.  Watch this space!