This is Clyde.

That’s what I call him anyway.

Clyde has kept watch from one of the red barns at Cairns Farm for an unknown number of decades.

Pretty soon, Clyde is going to come down. He’s getting a little scraggly and long in the tooth. I thought about burying him but it doesn’t seem like a fair trade after his years of service. He seems like a sky guy, not an earth guy, even though he used to be a cow. Maybe he seems like a sky guy because he used to be a cow, and he already did his time planted on the ground. He’s spent too much time flying high, anyway, to be locked in the soil now.

I think when Clyde comes down, I’m going to send him on a trip with one of my agile, monkey kids up high in an ancient oak tree where Clyde can rest and chat with the birds overlooking the whole farm and not just the little bit he’s guarded from the barn. That seems like a fitting retirement for Clyde. Like the best way to honor him as farm sage and guardian and guide.

Either that or at a brewery.

I’ll ask Clyde and see what he says. Stay tuned.