diary

[Guest guest]

Dear Hare Krsna prabhu and cow conference members

 

a few events from our diary( definitely not dairy). A few days ago Haripriya,

our very oldest cow. about 20 yrs or more died very peacefully. One day she

stopped eating and I made a bed of straw for her to sit as it is relatively

cold now here and gave her some homeopathic medicine in case she had

indigestion. Next day she was up and ate some green grass and in the

afternoon sat down and closed her eyes and she left. Like a yogi it seemed

at will. She was buried in a pasture . She was protected her whole life here

and enjoyed her old age walking about and sitting under trees. Especially she

loved to find fallen guavas. I played Srila Prabhupada's tapes for her but

intermittently as there is no electricity in the cow shed and I have

rechargeable batteries and a Sony walkman with speaker but would have to

keep changing the tape over. Now , since then, I have found an auto reverse

walkman with speaker of German technology , made in China , costing only RS

450 or about $ 10.00 which works beautifully and will play as long as the

batteries stay charged ,a few hours. It is a real find.

Haripriya is the only cow to have died in our herd in 12 years except for

Gaura our Jersey ox who died from cobra bite a few years ago.

 

Yamuna 's calf in now 2 months old., Mahadev. How she got bred we can never

know as she is the last cow we would want to breed and try to milk, she is

very hot tempered, small, with very long pointy horns and a lashing kick, but

she had her own plans and must have got divine help to overcome our

restrictions on breeding which were rather mean to forever deny her the chance

to become a mother, and she is the best mother, very devoted to the calf.

But we have to try to milk her or her calf gets indigestion and diarrohea.

Tying her legs was impossible as she jumped with her back legs up in the air

and the rope would fall or even if it stayed put she would just hold up the

milk and nothing would come out even with her calf sucking at the same time.

After 2 months we have got it better organised so the calf drinks most of it

and then we milk right at the end and dont bother to tie her legs and she is

relaxed then and allows , tho ready to kick at any second, and calf is drinking

too of course. We are able to take out a litre every day which saves the calf

some excess. For local Indian cow that is the average anyway. She gets a

treat every time and is very happy and pleased with herself and all the

attention.

 

Tambu got some maggots in a tiny hole in a very delicate place, the tip of her

vagina. I didnt want to renove them with turpentine oil or potassium

permanagate , because of damage to such delicate tissue so juice of crushed

sitaphal leaves ( custard apple) was pushed in with veterinary pliers and

soon we removed many small dead maggots with the same tool and applied

ayurvedic ointment and she had no more discomfort and healed up right away.

 

My husband and I decided to stop our purchase of 100 acres to keep cows and

bulls saved from slaughter on account of my husband's health crises . A

strong team is required and we dont have any team and we are old now. We'll

just take care of our own herd. Iskcon should be doing this work of cow

protection but the temples in Mumbai have no interest and although they had a

couple of festivals at our place do not keep in touch or give us any support,

Im not even talking about financial. tho its not a bad idea either. I mean

spiritual. At least the leaders of this society should support our cow

protection programme/ In the city they are drinking milk. The society of

devotees should adopt cows and support cowherds, But I heard even in Alachua

devotees buy chicken manure for their gardens so what hope is there for

cowprotection.?

 

ys Labangalatika dasi