Queen of the Texas Plains

A LongHorn Cow named Cinnabon

Once upon a time, there was a cow.

She was the most beautiful cow on Earth. Queen of the Texas Plains, she had great curling horns and a beautiful red-spotted coat, the camouflaging inheritance of a thousand generations come before her. She roamed the pastures of the Texas Savannahs with her children, successor to the noble Buffalo, tilling the earth with her nurturing hooves, enriching the dusty soil with her gifts.

The Seasons came and went. Fire and flood, tornado and storm, the whirlwind romance of Texas Skies and Prairies giving birth to WildFlowers and StickerBurrs. Beneath spreading Oaks, Silver Bluestem paraded their grassy clumps with Prickly Pear Cacti between shrubby trunks of thorny Mesquite, providing her and her children with Food and Shelter.

Men brought offerings of hay and Ranch Cubes, salt blocks and supplements; when the drought came and the ponds dried up, they hauled water. After the hay was gone, her sons were loaded up and hauled away to lands unknown; but her daughters remained to comfort her, a circle of Cows chewing cud in the afternoon sun. After a time the Bull would return to his Lovers, lowing the twilight, calling them to himself - and the cycle of calves would start anew.

The Herd moved with the seasons, from pasture to pasture, by trailer and by hoof, attended by entourages of Cowboys. Coyotes and Cougars followed not far behind, seeking her children. But her tender Calves she protected, swinging her ivory horns in an arc of death to any who would come near.

She was the Good Mother.

At last the day came, when the Cattleman culled the herd. “She’s getting old; she’s done as much as she can do, and there’s no sense in putting her through more. She’s done her job, and she’s done it well, but it’s time for her to go Home.”

And so the Queen of the Texas Plains was loaded onto the cattle trailer for the last time, the Bull and the Herd and her own daughters bidding her farewell from the Cattleman’s Pasture. Passing beneath Pecans Trees, the trailer rattled, carrying her across the creek and down the ridge to the final stop, the end of the trail…

the Gate opened wide. Beyond the barbed wire and haybales, the faces of loved ones beckoned -

She was Home.

The Queen of the Texas Plains is still here, consorting with the LongEars and the Horse under the Oaks. Content among friends, she lives her elder days in splendour, sunning herself beneath the wide Texas sky. She is the epitome of all things beautiful and brave in this wild country, a Spirit of the Land. From time to time I call her from my back porch, and she answers -

I call her Cinnabon, but her true name is known only to God. When that last day comes, He will call her Home to the Heavenly Fields from my back Pasture; a fitting finale for the Star of my Ranch…

a LongHorn Cow named Cinnabon, Queen of the Texas Plains.