Inside Out: What Are Dairy Cows Thinking

The new Pixar movie Inside Out is coming soon and I know my family is looking forward to going to see it.



It imagines our emotions being characters in our heads and how they interact. My first thoughts on dairy cows is that there must be a couple in their heads that do nothing but watch and wait for me to get close to the cow's rear end.

"Is The Farmer in range?"

"He's not in the full splatter zone. Wait!"

"Is he there yet?"

"Getting closer!"

"Now?"

"Now!"

And that's when they press the "go potty" button and my t-shirt and jeans get an instant brown tie-dyed look.

Maybe we can't actually get a view of a cow's brain or have a conversation with her about her feelings, but we can watch her because actions really do speak louder than words. As I write this our cows are all laying in the pasture after the morning milking. Full, content cows taking a nap is a good sign. Most are chewing their cud and simply resting.

As it gets closer to lunch I know they are hungry because they will be lining up at the gate to come in to eat.

There are many things that can frighten the girls from loud noises or "funny" smells (cows have a keen sense of smell) to visitors to the farm. When those incidences occur the cows will often put their noses in the air and raise their ears to figure out what's going on. If they feel threatened they will run. Cow care and cow comfort, therefore, are a top priority on any farm.

Happy, content cows eat and milk well. When cows refuse to eat, go down in milk, or don't go in to be milked at their regular spot in line then we also know something is wrong. Paying attention to the cows and how they act with others and during their normal daily routine is very important if we want to know what they are thinking and therefore how they feel.

Maybe cows can't verbalize it, but how they act is as good as speaking. Of course, there may be good reasons for cows not talking. Dairy cows have been know to be a little sassy!

The Farmer And The HFR Hobbit

While I rarely veer off from talking about just farm life, I've been inspired by some other bloggers to go rogue, I suppose, on this post and talk about my other love, movies.

Christmas was kind to me with the gift of movie tickets. My wife, who assures me that she does not get to go out enough, and I went to go see The Hobbit. Before you ask, yes, she wanted to go see it. Date night! Using our free tickets we were also able to go see it in an IMAX theater, which we basically chose to do so because the time of the showing worked out best for the farmer.

HFR

What I was really excited about was to go see the movie in the high frame rate (HFR) version. The director, Peter Jackson, wanted to try to overcome some of the flaws of 3D by increasing the traditional frame rate of movies of 24 frames per second to 48 frames per second. Basically we have been conditioned to watching the flaws of 24fps. It was chosen way back in the early days of filming as a compromise between enough frames to see motion without using too much expensive film stock. The flaws you do see are things like wheels that turn backward on a forward moving vehicle, how the image might judder on a slow pan, or strobing in 3D.

The high frame rate made the movie look very, very real. Some scenes really lend themselves to make you feel you were watching a live play instead of a movie. It was awkward at other times and often reminded me of the re-enactment scenes on a documentary on the History Chanel. It also had the look of unfinished deleted scenes you see on a DVD or Blu-ray; like they had not had the cinematic effects added to them. I would love to compare it to the 24fps version to see how much more it looked like a traditional movie.

When it was a close up scene and rousing music kicked in the music felt out of place because the movie looked so real I couldn't imagine music being played in this "real life" place. The 3D looked great, however, and was used tastefully throughout I thought even though if I'm not a huge 3D fan.

The Plot

The movie itself was fun. I have not read the book in a few years so while I knew the basic plot I was not nitpicking over things added or left out. I did recognize some of the additions made from other writings by Tolkien and thought they worked in adding foreshadowing to the Lord of The Rings movies. All of the actors were very convincing and it was great to have Gandalf the Grey back.

The basic plot is how Gandalf assembles a group of dwarfs, including the heir to the throne, to reclaim their kingdom that has been overtaken by a dragon. Gandalf insists they need a burglar in the person of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit. Now hobbits are folk that enjoy the simple life not adventures (and the wife thought there might be some similarities to a certain farmer she knows).

I thought the main point of this first movie in the trilogy was not only to set up the the story and introduce the villains, but to also show why the very capable at adventuring and fighting dwarfs needed a hobbit. Bilbo and Thorin, the would be king, have a great conversation late in the movie about "home." It was simple and elegant.

I liked the movie and will have to see more high frame rate movies before I can pass judgement on what I really think about it. In the meantime I'll be counting down the days until the Blu-ray comes out and the next installment comes to theaters.

Now back to the cows!

Ornithologist on the Farm (or Attack of the Birds!)

The other day we had a "herd of birds" on the farm that flew back and forth from field to field and trees to trees. While it wasn't exactly Hitchcock type mean birds...





..there sure were a lot of them.



This group stayed around the farm for a couple of days and then either dispersed or left altogether.


As far as being a professional bird watcher, I'd say I fall decidedly short. More so along the lines of Mr. Hobbs in this Jimmy Stewart movie.