{"id":115,"date":"2025-08-28T18:34:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T18:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andersenmorse.com\/?p=115"},"modified":"2025-10-26T22:05:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T22:05:46","slug":"cow-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andersenmorse.com\/?p=115","title":{"rendered":"Cow Book"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


Chapter One<\/strong>
Terminology

Cow – a mature female that has had a calf
Bull – a mature male with testicles intact
Heifer – a young female that has not yet given birth to calf
Steer – a castrated male
Ox – a castrated bull that has been trained for work. Oxen is plural

These terms are specific and precise for use in the industry, however in the subsequent text use of these terms could be considered fast and loose. At the butcher shop quantities of bovine that were processed each week were referred to as steer. The gender of most bovine in the text are inaccurate and often unknown. My apologies sir or madam.

This collection deals with the butchering of cows.



Chapter Two<\/strong>
Traffic Light Stop

A glassy eye peered out between the slats in the galvanized metal. In the jumbled arrangement within, fate gave this one a seat to the passing world outside. We shared a moment, a pause at a red light. Stuck at the cross section.
For a year and change I woke up at four in the morning to be on the road a half our later. The commute to Greeley, Colorado took an hour and a half from the heart of Denver. I would beat the Up First NPR podcast to publication. I had a difficult time rising any amount earlier to make a proper breakfast or even a fresh pot of coffee. The night before I would put a few tablespoons of coffee, whatever would fit into a tea strainer, and let that steep in a large glass overnight. Turning onto I-25 that next morning I would drink the cold black tar down to shake me awake in the dark.
In 2017, I had traded my knife in for joining up at the Local 208 Pipefitters in Colorado. My first spot being on a job site expanding a cheese plant. One which was said to be responsible for supplying all the cheese for the leading fast food pizza joints. The whole place had the slight scent of sour dairy.
Traveling northing I would chase, catch, and surpass slow rocking freight trains. Hauling grains between silos. Royal purple and amber hues break across the horizon, waking up the rest of the world. I was about as green as they come, an apprentice often tasked with lugging about the tools and parts for the journeymen. The apprehension and anxiety became apart of each day. Growing in my gut with each mile. Approaching another shift, I anticipated how I might mess that day. Each day was filled with new lessons.
With an immense desire just to keep up and stay out of the spotlight, I was called up to a halt at that red light. I looked out to me left and saw into the dark void of the cattle trailer. Loaded up early in the morning. I would pass feed lots on my way to work. It wasn’t always possible to see them, but their scent would crawl through the air conditioning in truck. I saw that eye of the black angus. Peering out into the rest of the world. It would be their last day.
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Chapter Three<\/strong>
Saying Never

In my senior year of high school, my brain had set firm two things. How I remember being so confident then my decision, in setting my feet on a path. The end of high school was the time for knowing precisely how your life was going to develop. Part of knowing where to go is to rule out where you won’t be going. Those two things were: I never wanted to live in New York City, and I never wanted to work in food. About seven years later I would eat this words.
Working as a butcher would be the saving grace for being able to survive in the city. It made it all worth it, though I would developed a love for my neighborhoods and the nuances of the city. In the fall of 2014 I became an apprentice at a butcher shop in Brooklyn. It was a three month apprenticeship. In the beginning I figured I would be in and out after 3 months with a new skill and onto something new. I had just extradited myself out of university and was looking for something to do with my hands. Almost anything to not be sitting at a desk. Wearing a knife belt sounded romantic to me.
Cutting meat helped me survive the close quarters, high rent, and the everlasting heat of a NYC summer. The first window air conditioning unit was purchased that first July I weathered. Having your daily work inbox be a pile of dead bodies keeps you grounded. The heavy lifting keeps you tired. I write this was not as a form of bravado or nonchalance, nor a way to be crass or obtuse to the reader. Manipulating the language, mixing up the words helps keep what is actually happening fresh and alive. No pun intended there. I don’t ever want to loose grasp on what I am doing, on what I have done. To forget would be to loose myself and the realities of how we survive.
My work as a butcher has been one of the most dramatic and significant acts of my life. The world is an incredible place filled with an unfortunate amount of chatter. Bullshit of the wrong variety. Butchery helps me return to the source.

Look for work that brings you home to the real genuine bullshit. Butchery has provided me with a real opportunity to be able to help someone. The ability to aid my community. Nothing else has made me feel more accepted and seen by those around me.



Chapter Four<\/strong>
Pulling Back the Curtain

Working as a butcher has allowed me to scrap up against the nature of death. While I was not inside the slaughterhouse daily, on the regular I was breaking down carcasses for five retail shops and fulfilling whole sale orders across the NYC metro area. You get accustom to the sights and smell. You barter in body parts. Extract bone. Separate tendon. Remove skin. Its what kept me going, what paid my bills, the scraps that sustained my own life financially and nutritionally. Their death was my life.

The job pulls back the curtain. The layers of obscurity that our world has put into place. Walls between our meal time and the blood life force of our cattle. It was exposure therapy. A refreshing feeling for me, for someone fresh out into the world. Contrasting the dry world of academia and book learning that dominates the beginning of our lives. As if someone was finally being truthful. The job naturally encourages a level of gallows humor and bravado in the beginning. A healthy does of double entendre was supplied through the awkward names for cuts and body parts. After awhile these jokes just put another layer back in between you and the source. Between you and what you are doing. Trading in parts that make up the fabric of life. We changes the names as a distraction, but its the same materials that make up your own body. As you stand there at the butcher block, on your own pair shanks.

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Chapter Five<\/strong>
Parts of our Faith

I am not a man of faith. When the parts of a cow are dissected, cleaned and sprawled out across the cut table, truth is exposed. You see the same muscles in the cow, that you saw in the pig that was broken down yesterday. The same ones that you will see in the lamb that you will do tomorrow. Somehow I had not felt this truth of life until that moment. Nobody had prevented me from knowing this, from feeling this, yet it had been tucked away so I wouldn’t come across it. I still find it strange how my mind related this feeling more as a religious awakening, than any confirmation of scientific hypothesis into fact. All of my saints were out to pasture.

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Chapter Six<\/strong>
Audience Participation

A large component of my work as a butcher has always included education. After completion of my own apprenticeship I was hired on to stay. This was a fortunate development as seeing I had no standing plans for any source of income afterwards. I had speculated on returning to Colorado to work on a ranch in the south, yet the stipend for a ranch hand intern would not qualify anywhere as a “salary”. I stayed on with the company and filled the position of third butcher at the processing site, and the arrival of the next batch of apprentices was imminent.
I had never thought myself as a teacher, but throughout my time working as a butcher in the city, my involvement in teaching apprentices and public class grew. It became a vital part of the job, a rewarding experience in itself that helped keep me satisfied and fulfilled in Brooklyn.

There is a moment during a demonstration, when people have gathered around to take part in learning how an animal is butchered, that that dead animal on the table becomes dinner. A large shoulder of beef is on the cut table. The front leg shoots out at an unmistakable angle. That is clearly the neck leaning off of the edge. Its a deep red around the spot the knife went in to bleed out the cow. The observers can see the bisected spine curling up the back. That white line of the spinal column.

Then the rack of spare ribs comes off. Its a familiar shape. A comforting shape. In a moment my guests find themselves back in a comfort zone. Sights they have seen out in restaurants, cuts that have graced their own kitchen table back home. Its dinner time now. They want to buy it right off the table then and there. Grandmothers responsible for Sunday supper are the most enthused and courageous. The familiar shape of the rib eye, or a chuck roast puts people back at ease. The intimidation of the carcass has gone away. The foreign body has now become familiar. This should not be a shameful transition, though it can be awkward when it is brought up in the moment. They’ve been caught in the act. My guests are often not panicked on where their next meal will derive from, there is comfort in recognizing the bounty that exists before them on the cut table. Brought back down to earth, to our immediate locale. For all our needs and wants that we have manifested for ourselves, consider how many are actually required for us to see tomorrow. How many are fulfilled by a hanging side of beef.

Experiencing the animal on the cut table allows our relationship with the animal to continue. In life and in death we carry on a relationship with our environment. The late and ironic respect and care that occurs on the butcher block. The posthumous rites and rituals that occur as we make dinner plans to incorporate them within us.
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Chapter Seven<\/strong>
How to Ruin a Steak

Perhaps we should let it rest on the counter to come up to room temperature. We should dry off the outside to help create a sear when it hits the heat. I heard that the cold air of the fridge works as effective desiccant. Though it will still be cold. Get that frying pan hot before letting that steak hit. We want it smoking hot. You must use an fat with a high smoke point. Count the minutes and flip it. Keep flipping it accordingly. Perhaps instead we should only flip it once. Don’t move it. Don’t interrupt the sear. Keep moving it. Now your moving it too much. Don’t dry it out. Cast Iron is king. Carbon Steel? Wait should we be grilling it instead. Propane? Labor and obsess over charcoal. Be finicky over brand loyalty. Be critical of others who decided different. Dictate the party to stoking the coals. Don’t squeeze it so much. Finish it in the oven. Don’t set that oven too hot. Though too not too long, we’re not baking it. No, wait reverse sear it. That will impress you guests. Assert your prowess in the kitchen. Baste it with butter and herbs, but let the taste of the beef speak for itself. Grass fed butter, don’t consider anything less. Ghee is all the rage now. Watch that time we don’t want to let it go a second too far. Watch that timer, ignore your guests. That steak needs to rest, wrap it in foil to protect it from going cold. Don’t let it go cold. Slice it against the grain. Don’t even mention the idea of steak sauce. Prize tenderness above all. Brag about it Monday morning.

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Chapter Eight<\/strong>
Standing on Bones

There is a part of me that feels these cows when I see a herd out among the hills. The ones that my life is built upon. Standing on their bones is how I can see as far as I can. What do I see when I look at a cow. A herd out in their pasture. Watching a line follow the leader, making their way back to the barn. Silhouetted on the crest of a hill against the sky, chewing their cud. A herd laying down together in the shade of a tree line. I catch glimpses of these scenes as I rush by on the road, pressing the accelerator further down to the floor. Wishing I wasn’t. When I look long enough, and it doesn’t take long at all, I start to see myself. My wrongs, my sins, my shortcomings. In a beast so pure and complete. Standing firm. Confident. On time and never in a rush. Somewhere along the line I have lost parts of myself, of what I should be, instead of what I have become. Time ticks and I am doing this? I feel my inadequacies deep to my bones.

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Chapter Nine<\/strong>
Homestead Processing

I winced at the sight of roadkill on the side of the road. A gray squirrel flattened. The irony not lost on me, traveling the back roads to butcher an animal. Truth be it that the animal was already dead, and I myself did not have land the killing blow. The warmth of the summer morning had long since passed us at this point. Morning dew had been traded for frost on the grass and a haze on my windshield. The coffee gave off trails of vapor into the cab of the truck. I find a cheap cup of gas station coffee now romantic from my commutes in Colorado. Setting off for a day of honest labor. As I age I become more obsessed with being honest in any way possible that work can come to mean. At the least I work to reduce the amount of lies that express. The most dangerous being the ones that I keep telling to myself.
I had sharpened my knives the night before, preparing for a full day of cutting. I shook hands with the man that hired me to cut of a steer for him and his family. It would be refreshing take to butcher on the old homestead in stead of behind a retail counter or in a USDA facility under the eye of the government. The sides of beef were hanging from a rafter in the old shed. We drug up the butcher block table onto the side lawn and set the scene. The dogs stayed close, waiting for their opportunity. We had drafted up half of a cut list, the rest would be considered and decided on the fly. Its considerable work to cut up a steer. Its even more to wrap and tag all of the subsequent parts that come off the animal. The bounty of a whole animal is something to behold and embrace if one is willing, and I found myself at the home a family ready to dive in. The beef had come from a neighboring farm, bartered for through the sharing of pasture land. After the slaughter and hanging, I arrived to process. Based on the simple hanging weight of the carcass, I was charging a simple 1.00 per lb. A whole steer could dress out to be 750 lbs. Not bad work if you can get it, and I was thankful. Being glad for the opportunity to make some cash on the side. The gratitude I felt at the end of the day was something else entirely.
The genuine curiosity of the children was delightful. In a time of compartmentalized and pay to play experiences, the day was seamless. Children ran around in all matters of play. At first they stood off to the side, taking in the rare sight of a massive slab of meat on the table. Then came the questions that I only wish now I had to mind to recall. The breadth and depth of their thoughts and opinions on the matter. Not yet formed and molded by the world at large. It was honest interest and acceptance of what we were doing. They were allowed to be apart of a raw experience of life. Isn’t that what kids want from us more than anything? The collective effort of the family and community to bring something together for the benefit of everyone.
Coffee came out in old mugs in the morning. In the afternoon the dregs were washed out with bottles of red wine. Steaks were pulled off the cut table. Cold hands were warmed by the fire. The grill flared with fat drippings transfixing us all with its scent. Fingers instead of forks. Wagyu and USDA prime couldn’t hold a candle to well earned homegrown beef. The satisfaction akin to grandmothers cooking. How much have we lost in our search and chase in obtaining “the best” of everything.
It was a day for the books. An experience unhad in my career until then. To be welcomed into a home, into a family and be able to share my skill. To be able to aid in bringing us all closer, deeper into the true essence of living upon this earth. The totality of what we do and share during the days that we are granted. The joy that man miraculously manifested within a moment. The sadness and loss that the sunset brings. I’ll be awaiting days like these.


Chapter Ten<\/strong>
Pasture

When I was a boy growing up I was often barefoot at home. Unless taken out into the world, summer days especially were spent without shoes outside. The grass stained heels that I would earn from running around on fresh cut lawns. How often my touched the raw earth. Feeling the damp soil, grass, and weeds. Lamenting the haphazard discovery of that one with thorny leaves. Stones and twinge, Insects that would crawl up your legs. Perhaps I feel so lost today because I’ve lost that habit of running my toes across the the top fringe of the world. That time I spent outside in my own pasture. How much do we clad ourselves in, armor to shield ourselves from the dangers of the world. How little do we need, and how long has it always been provided and available to us.



Chapter Eleven<\/strong>
The Disassembly Line

It was years before my time in Brooklyn that I witnessed the death of my first cow. I saw the whole process in reverse from above on the catwalks thats observed the kill floor at one of Cargill’s slaughterhouses in Pennsylvania. They became large, more complete as we approached the cow chute. The Henry Ford disassembly line. All working towards the first step. The knocker. The headlock catching the next cow to enter, locking the head in place for a clean stun. I was in college. It was June of 2012, on a summer independent study in ecosystems. I was approaching my last semester and mainly in a state of trying to escape the system and be freed from academia. The apprehension grew as the tour group approached the start of the line. The prospect of working in this industry at all did not exist within me. I wasn’t convinced that I wouldn’t even look towards where the cows were being stunned. Perhaps I could evade it unnoticed to those around me that I wasn’t looking. I remember watching my feet to make sure I didn’t stumble. Through the grate of the catwalk I could see cows hanging upside down, being stripped of their skin. Gazing up to take my next step, my eyes locked in on the sight. Dark crimson bubbled up from the wound. The pneumatic piston fired into the skull, into the brain. The head lock springs open and they fall to the ground. They weren’t dead yet. Hooked and hoisted up, they were stuck in the neck with a long knife to bleed out. The heart was still working, still pumping until they bleed out and its finally over. Its something that at least I couldn’t look away from I must have watched it several times over as we stood witnessing it from above. The finale of the tour. At the end of the catwalk was a door to the outside. A quick glance beyond showed the holding pens, the herd outside waiting, making their way through the maze. They did two hundred head an hour. It peculiar the roads we travel before we ever know that we are on them.


Chapter Twelve<\/strong>
Bottle Calf Interlude

Months before apprenticeship in NYC, I decided to spend time on a grassfed beef and lamb farm to experience the other half. I spent two months on a farm in northern NY. One day before lunch, the farmer Albert told me to go out and watch the herd. “You can learn a lot by just watching them” he said. I remember a calm walk out into their pasture. I sat down on a boulder outcropping to watch them. The August sun beat down and made my body feel heavy. I laid down on the stone. The sunshine bleeding through my eyelids. I listen to them as they grazed. The slow tearing of grass on their pallet. The swiping of tails against their backsides. Massive exhales as they perused their pasture.



Portrait of a Farm Hand

Sun and cigarettes had baked Stan’s face into a tough leather. His voice was rough and spoken through a mouth with a few less teeth than a standard set. Though after working with the man for some long hard hours, seeing the difficult days that he has put in over his days, and the misfortune, his soul is kind.
The farmers son had taken to Stan and became his shadow whenever he was around. The kid asked questions incessantly, the same ones over and over, but you can see the enjoyment Stan had from the kid’s company. Stan would crack a toothy smile while repeating multiple times the same answer to the same questions.
Stan’s biggest vice seemed to be smoking those damn cigarettes. Two packs a day with no trouble, at least to my eyes. He was fifty seven years old with thirty seven percent left of his two lungs in working order. Though perhaps hes not afraid of when his time comes. While out working he told me that one day he awoke early to go out to plow the fields only to be called that his wife had passed, she had gone to bed and never rose. So maybe he was in no hurry to stick around here for too long. Though he has children and grandchildren. He probably knew he should quit, and probably does want to for them.


Portrait of a Farmer

Albert, a man that doesn’t always have many words to share. We were alike in that respect. One of old stock and merit. A military man. To him, taking off Sunday meant loosing one seventh of your life that you could use working towards a better life. He was built on hard work and discipline. Yet kind and playful at heart. You could see that leak out through his eyes as he watched his son. The glint of warmth can be seen in his smile. He remarked how grateful he was that farming allowed him to be around for his young son as he grows.

Where other men smoke, chew, and drink he seems to hold no vice. Though he as a large appetite for the sweet. Perhaps it goes along with having a young son, but the man enjoys his ice cream and a frosty mug of ginger ale. Theres beer in the house, but I have not seen him manage through a single bottle on his own thirst. A meat and potatoes man, classic in his taste buds. Iceberg lettuce and boiled potatoes.


Portrait of a Tractor Mechanic

I had heard of George before I met him. A retired military man that was now well into his seventies. Though now it was his health that was failing him now more than his mind for machines. He had a garage next to the house and despite his ailments and fatigue from a stroke his still made it out into the shop each day.
My first sight of George painted his personality. Perched on a stool in his stop he toiled at the work bench. A work light illuminating the corner of the garage, a beautiful classic John Deere tractor rested in the shadows. Hidden in the darkness Classic country music played over the radio. A pair of magnifying eye glasses sat perched on his bald head. An old pipe suck out from his mouth that had gone out for some time. Extra tobacco and a bic lighter stuck out of the breast pocket of his t shirt, threatening to fall out. He was by no means a trim man for his age. Retirement had been generous with the size of his waistline. Though this should not fool anyone for it was him that with a pipe wrench that stood thigh high that loosed the two seized fittings that had bested Albert and I. He was a gem of a man who prided on doing things right the first time. He sat back on to his stool in a small triumph and tried to rekindle the ash and tobacco in his pipe.

There was a bottle calf out in the barn near the house. The mother had rejected it before my arrival. Still needing milk we had to bottle feed him. Eugene showed me how to mix up the formula. Must have been about a two liters or so that we’d make up. He was fed a couple times a day in between chores and making hay. There was a paddock attached to the barn, open to give them shelter at night. We’d rustle him up wherever he was to eat, though most of the time his own sense of time let them know it was mealtime. Nursing him until he could return back to the herd. Swinging a leg over the rail he would begin his own bellowing moo. He’d begin head butting into my legs. Fighting his way in, going for where an expected mother’s udder should have been. Going after my fingers instead to no benefit. Pulling them up against the roof of his mouth. He was much more gentle than I first expected when his mouth leaped out towards my hand. The small best should have induced himself with hiccups with the rate of flow he was capable of taking down his breakfast. An impressive appetite. I’d give him a pat as he ate. A pat on the side of his belly. A rough scratch in the coarse hair of his boney forehead.

Albert came in one morning from outside as I was working my way through a bowl of cereal. He rose earlier than I did. We’d go through the list in the morning of what was to be done that day. Somewhere in between it all that little calf had died. Slipped, fallen, and twisted itself up among a rocky outcropping in the hillside. It was a sun filled day. The fields of cut grass needed raking.
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Is it strange to admit that sometimes jealous of a cow? Ironic given my line of work. Jealous of cows out to pasture. Those that are out free to graze, free to be about their day. To be able to relax out on a grassy knoll in a way that only a herd can accomplish. It is in our best interest to accommodate theirs. They seem to have it figured out. That they never had to figure it out, born into knowing. Into a bovine buddha state they arrive into the world. While we dominate their lives, there is a layer that we cannot erase or control.

There was a moment on the farm when I stood between a young bull and what he desired. He put his head down low for a moment with his shoulders forward. It was time to move him up to the rest of the herd. Restart the cycle of the cow calf operation. In an attempt to coax him into the trailer, we were using a corner of the pasture to form a small makeshift paddock. I had a free section of wire fence in one and while I gripped the trailer door with the other. The bull shifted towards the gap in my wall and I lunged to close the opening. Somehow we had make a circuit with the electric fence. I felt that click of electricity lick the left arm, run across my shoulders, and down my right to the trailer. While his end would be eventually dictated but us humans, at that moment, there wasn’t anything that this green farm hand in front of him was going to do that would stop him. He had won.



Chapter Thirteen
<\/strong>What I talk about when I talk about Cows

I’m still talking about cows, trust me. I believe they help encapsulate a feeling I have about the world and our existence. Things have grown so large and abundant, that the systems of supply, fulfillment, and green have lead us away from the beings that we should be sharing our lives(Cows being just one). I feel an energy in their presence. Through magic and luck I manifested into the world where I am, where little separates me from these beasts. Even in my most hurried days and commutes I can at the very least experience these animals for a moment or two.

Despite the hours logged in having my hands deep in raw red flesh I still feel tender. I am not any more prepared for dealing with death. You can fight the routine familiarity that the work can bring. Take efforts to bring a present and conscious mind to the cut table, but I don’t think there will ever come a time that it will make it easy. A world built on the cycle of creation and decomposition. Generational waves giving way and making space. Handing over our time in the limelight. Acquiesce. We run hard to outpace our own slow, methodological breakdown. All we can do is experience the end, open our hearts to each moment it bleeds into the present.

These beasts can make us feel something if we give them the opportunity. Their stare, a snort, their complete indifference to your presence. Now perhaps they’ve changed their mind and need to put some distance between them and you. If your luckily they became a bit curious instead. A tarot deck of cloven hooves, they provide cryptic message. Allowing you to feel and know something you been searching for, something that might have been within you from the beginning as well.

Their deaths should be felt. Acknowledged and be given respect. How do you give respect in an appropriate manner? How do you know when you’ve transfer enough? How long should I stay in silence to commemorate? How do I signal to others that I am being respectful? What should be repeated. What poem can I recite? What poem can I commit to memory to broadcast.
We’ve already lost the point. The silver bullet doesn’t exist. Never stop grieving. Heavy shoulders that become part of us. We have found ourselves in a tragic pursuit to escape the death of every being around us. The remedy is to carry them all.
Death travels down into each meal. Be conscious of what you are doing. Take deep breaks. Allow a moment to exist. Effort in the prevention of letting it become another mindless chore. Remembering the beast, the blood, the flesh. The meat the brings us all closer.
The sharing of a meal. Coming together and all sharing in the same source of life.

Its okay to feel sad. This is a basic and redundant sentence to write, however it feels necessary to actually repeat. Somewhere along our way, we learn that it is in fact not okay to be sad. In the beginning it makes you feel bad and uncomfortable. Other people don’t know what to do with you and don’t want to be around you.
Its a significant occurrence to see an animal be broken down for its parts. To watch itself be subdivided down, often quick and without ceremony. Exposure can cause guilt to bubble up within us. Its an honest act to butcher and with it always brings emotion. If we’re doing our job with care, if we are approaching our days on this earth with grace, I should hope that the sorrow always remains. Each animal that hits the wooden block should make me feel that way. A sullen feeling is pervasive in this world. It swells within me as I get older. It creeps up, making my feet heavy for a moment or two. I twinge in the back that makes you stop and look at the body on the table. It helps maintain that we are still alive. That the joyous peaks in our lives are amplified by the pits and valleys that we allow ourselves to embrace.


Suffering is a built in feature of our world. Inescapable for all. It is our best interest to work to reduce the amount that we encounter. At what point do we approach the limits of of our ability, and collide with our own hubris. Is it overconfidence or our own fragile nature that we wish to encounter as little as possible of the jagged edges of the world. Is it arrogant to assume that we are capable and deserving to transcend the experience of suffering that is entwined in the death that is required for survival. Why do we think we are deserving to escape this suffering while leaving the rest of existence behind. Mild success only emboldens our attempts in numerous imaginative ways to create sustenance without culling. Perhaps it is at the expense of our own nature. Drifting further away. Erecting more walls. For the sake of those who can afford, we have others do our killing. Exactly what are we spending to continue.

Our return and salvation is entwined in our ability to have a relationship with the animals that we share our time with on this earth. It cannot be sustained from afar.


Chapter Fourteen<\/strong>
How to cook the perfect Steak

Give up. Learn just enough about cooking. Any more and do your best to forget it. Go to your local butcher. Go to the supermarket and get a steak you can afford. Dig the frozen one you’ve been saving for nothing out of the freezer. Season your steak with something. Salt it. Throw whatever pepper is on hand. Make yourself a drink. Consider what sides you are making. Invite someone over. Forget about the steak on the counter, or wherever you left it. Did the dog eat it? Finally decide to cook it. Get something hot. Turn the dials on the grill all the way up. Run out of propane and have to get more. Make sure you hear that story your friends are telling. Tell the one they’ve heard way to many times. Fling open the grill, the fat is on fire. That might be done. Poke it a few times and then shoot from the hip and an educated guess. Let it rest somewhere. That should help after rescuing from the leaping flames. Should we wrap it in foil, the potatoes aren’t done yet. Okay, fingers crossed. Slice it up. Just pour those juices that leaked out right back on over top. Hopefully theirs enough, give everyone seconds. Collapse on the couch.


Chapter Fifteen<\/strong>
Foster Mothers of the Human Race

At the tail end of winter in 2020, mt father was selling the family business. He was retiring and I was in between work. Amidst the clean up of the office, I was pulling staples out of old expired insurance policies that had been written over the decades. Files now destined for the shredder. Seasonal changes of generational proportions. My hands ran over old carbon copies and stamped forms. Policies recorded on typewriters. Finding old spots where my grandfathers signature lives. The impressions of the pen head raising the back side of the paper.
I’ve always had a predisposition for paper, pens, and other stationary wonders. I remember as a child shuffling my converse sneakers across the office carpet. Soft and quiet footfalls to the supply room that lived at the end of rows of filing cabinets. Eager to poke my small hands into boxes of fresh pens, erasers and bags of rubber bands. Giving myself acute acupuncture from the alligator pincers of the staple remover. There was a comforting scent that coalesces between fresh ink and reams of paper.
Decades later I stand in the same room and it still holds a quiet reassurance. Unearthing old boxes of paper and eclectic office equipment that has long been rendered obsolete but todays computers and technological saviors. We were working through what was worth keeping, and how to dispose of the rest. Tucked away, leaning in a stack against the wall were framed pictures of painted pastoral scenes. Relating to the local land and region, the insurance firm had made its start giving coverage to the farmers that made up the community of Delaware County.
In between them all was a smaller print of a painting. Unframed, stuck against the glass of a larger one. It was titled “Foster Mothers of the Human Race” by James S. Baird. In a sweeping arc, right to the scene of clean pasture and a clear blue bird day were five cows. Each an ambassador to the dairy breed that they were. A gentle and serene scene. The tall standing Holstein cow give a penetrating look to the observer. A watchful all knowing eye. I had to take this one home.

James Baird was the art director for Hoard’s Diaryman magazine producing numerous works throughout his career there. He would go on the revist “Foster Mothers”, painting multiple iterations of those beloved cows. These paintings were inspired from a quote from the founder of Hoard’s Dairyman Magazine and Hoard’s Dairyman Farm.

His quote goes as follows:

“The cow is the foster mother of the human race. From the day of the ancient Hindu to this time have the thoughts of men turned to this kindly and beneficence creature as one of the chief sustaining forces of human life.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter OneTerminology Cow – a mature female that has had a calfBull – a mature male with testicles intactHeifer – a young female that has not yet given birth to calfSteer – a castrated maleOx – a castrated bull that has been trained for work. Oxen is plural These terms are specific and precise for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[14,16,15],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-butcher","tag-cows","tag-nonfiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andersenmorse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andersenmorse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andersenmorse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andersenmorse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andersenmorse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/andersenmorse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117,"href":"https:\/\/andersenmorse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andersenmorse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andersenmorse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andersenmorse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}