Soule: Miles Smith Farm Is an Unlikely Pet Shop

With a dozen calves already born and one more due, I have a lot to be grateful for this year. All of the newborns are alive, and some even have new homes. This year people from all over the country have bought Miles Smith Farm babies and young cows.

Crystal from North Carolina bought 2-year-old Grace as a companion for the one Scottish Highlander she already has. Doug from Vermont has two draft horses but wanted two heifer calves he could raise and bond with. Lily from Colorado bought a heifer calf and a bull calf for her "back yard." Sally took Elsie and Molly home because she loves cattle. The demand for cute and cuddly Scottish Highlander cows and calves is extraordinary. Adopting a cow is not quite the same as adopting a dog or cat, but the goal is the same; to have a pet that gives succor and acceptance. Pets, even cattle, don't pass judgment and can bring calm to a stressful day. All they need is food, protection from predators, and discipline, and they will do almost anything we ask, well, almost anything.

The other day we were loading cattle into the stock trailer for a short trip to join the cattle grazing at our remote Audubon pasture owned by St. Paul's School. Hope, an older cow, decided she did not want to get in the trailer. Given time and patience, I'm sure she will eventually be a willing passenger in our "Cow Taxi," but she wanted nothing to do with it that day. She and her calf are still at the farm eating hay, not rich, green grass.

I bought pregnant Hope in the spring, so she never got the hands-on training we give all of the calves born on the farm. Early training is the key to raising cattle that will be good support animals. (No, you can't take them on a plane.)

Not all cows get with the program.

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Author Carole Soule is co-owner of Miles Smith Farm in Loudon, N.H., where she raises and sells beef, pork, lamb, eggs, and other local products.