Ruth Foster

Essays, Memoirs & True Stories

Death Of A Milk Cow

Zelda was my present to Ken for his thirty-third birthday. She came cheap, having been culled from a small commercial dairy herd because she was stunted, in part from having calved too young. She was a luxurious, soft brown Jersey with large, moist eyes. Jerseys are known for their pacific dispositions (the females, anyway) and the richness of their milk, which has a higher fat content than that of any other breed. Zelda’s milk was so rich that, when we poured it fresh from the pail into old tuna-fish cans for the cats, it was yellow.

July 2000