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A couple of months ago I posted about Hiking with the Cows. The time in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and South Tyrol when the cattle leaves the farms to spend the summer high up in the alpine pastures, and now, with the beginning of fall, it’s time to get them back home.
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I watched a young woman shoot one of her Galloway breeding bulls with a hunting rifle, and the atmosphere, the ritual itself, and the logic behind it, as well as the surrounding area, which looked a lot like South Tyrol, the part between Italy and Austria where I am from originally, made me smile.
I was raised on a farm in Austria, right on the boarder to Italy in a beautiful, idyllic mountain village. We had some cows, sheep’s and pigs and chickens everywhere. A farmers day starts early in the morning and doesn’t end before late at night. Everybody is needed -no exceptions, there is always something to do. We had acres of fruits trees and fields with potatoes and corn. Grass had to be mowed, fences had to be repaired and fruits had to be picked. The farms were not in calling distance; we had to drive to our neighbor’s house.