The Cow who Wanted to be a Queen

“I want to be a queen.”

Maria shifted in her stall double munching hay.

“A queen! A milk cow will never be a queen, Maria. We’re here for milk and to make baby cows; no more. This is a vaca lechera’s life and we’ll never be a princess, magician or country president. There’s no escaping our bovine duty to Sr. Chacon.”

Adamant in her conviction, Maria mooed, “I’m gonna be a queen one day; you just wait and see.”

Her sister cows found her dream to be a queen entertaining, but harmless, so they let her be.

Maria is a contented cow living in a quiet town overlooking the central valley capital city of San Jose. Unmoved from her dream and in a light mooed she sauntered out of the barn to the lush mountain fields of the Chacon family farm to eat a field of clover. Eating clover in Coronado is even more delicious burped up from one of her four stomachs for a slow re-chew.

“Cows might jump over the moon Maria, but we don’t jump the moon, we sleep under it. A queen needs a castle Maria, ever see any castles up here?”

Maria hummed her favorite songs as she enjoyed the grass.

Hey diddle, diddle,

the cat and the fiddle,

the cow jumped over the moon,

the little dog laughed to see such sport,

and the dish ran away with the spoon.

Sr. Chacon had a farm, E I E I O

And on that farm, he has milk cows E I E I O.

With a moo-moo here and a moo-moo there

here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a moo-moo,

Sr. Chacon has a farm, E I E I O…

Maria, and her nineteen sisters, the country’s top quality milk producers work for the Coopecoronado, where the co op boss, Oscar Zuñiga decides who will provide the milk for his dairy business. Selecting the Chacon herd for their cream quality milk production proved he knew best his customer’s tastes.

Maria was one of a mountain herd of milk cows living in the Central American country of Costa Rica. Switzerland without snow would best describe her farm’s tropical setting. Homes at elevation need a fire to keep the night chill at bay, but the temperate mountain climate above the tropical lowlands makes the best superior quality milk. Beef cattle graze the low country, while milk cows hold the high ground

Coronado is anchored to the mountain by a majestic, cathedral built during the colonial period. The entire village radiates from this central point of reverence. It’s an altitude slope, rural hamlet nestled one mile closer to the sky than the sea, overlooking an east, west valley that spreads like an apron at its base.

Maria, a tan colored Jersey, gives two gallons of milk every day, rain or shine. Her girlfriends do the same, or better. Maria de Milagro (Maria, of Miracles) was named after the Virgin Mary and for this reason she felt truly blessed.

Here is Maria’s (true) story, shared from the perspective of a cow.

“You could’ve ended up as hamburger, Maria.”

“I know, but I had a totally great time!” Maria, announced her claim to fame as she stepped from the travel trailer into the barnyard. Every night in pasture she watched the twinkling city below her farm and her big dream was to spend a day in San Jose. The city sparkling in the shimmering night heat of the long valley floor entranced her to want more.

Now that she’d visited the city, she shared the exciting news of her adventure with her sister cow girlfriends at the Arnoldo Chacon farm in San Pedro de Coronado. Her friends mooed with appreciation, envious at Maria’s supreme good fortune to see the city and live to share the tale.

“Lucky cow,” they mooed

“It was crazy with TV cameras and newspapers taking pictures and making videos for the news,” she said.

“I loved the police chase before we got to town, right up to the last part when they stopped us and I got car sick out the taxi’s back door.

“It was sirens, flashing lights and fast driving. You wouldn’t believe it. The two men in the taxi yelled, ‘faster, faster’. It was yahoo, go faster with unexpected turns and full run straightaways. Wheeee... I’ll never forget it long as I live.” A cow’s life is one of habit and daily routine, so any thing out of the ordinary is a cause for celebration.

“Maria, you’re not only brave but lucky too.” The others mooed in unison, as milk cows do when they’re happy with farm life.

“What I want to know is how’d they know I was missing? I was cow-napped before dawn and our first milking. How did Sr. Chacon find out I was gone?”

“The truth is—we called your robbery into the rural police station.” Millicent, Maria’s mother spoke first. She was a Jersey too and gave the best, butterfat laced milk to feed the hungry people of her mountain hamlet.

“We used the phone at the back of the barn that Sr. Chacon uses to do his milk business. We dialed 119 emergency and…”

“Millicent, let Betty tell the story, she made the call.”

Maria’s mother was not mad at her for being such a wayward cow. She knew Maria, once grown, would know right from wrong. She blamed it on Maria’s Holstein father’s wayward ways. He’s the one who made her that way. He was a bull for adventure and a ‘bit-of-give-it-a-go was well within his range of accepted activity.

Betty began, “We dialed the emergency number 119. (Like everything else in Costa Rica, the Spanish language puts English words and numbers in a different order even with emergency phone numbers).

“A police lady answered and she could hear us crying, well…, mooing in the background. We thought you were gone to the butchers. When one of the girls started bawling, we couldn’t help ourselves. We were a sad herd of bawling cows.”

“Betty! Keep on track, you’re wandering.” Dani, a sturdy Guernsey, encouraged Betty back to her story.

“We were crying… Mooo, Mooo, Mooo…”

“Betty!”

“All right, enough already.”

“I told the nice police lady a cow has been robbed in Coronado. I described you as a sweet, two-year-old Jersey, around six hundred pounds that wouldn’t hurt a fly. I told her you had red hair with white saddle markings and that you were a kind, loving cow and a good mother too.”

The lady asked, “Where is this farm exactly Señora?”

“I gave her the directions and when we felt help was on the way we calmed down.”

“How was she stolen? Did you see the thieves?”

“Yes, we did. We were in the field under the moon. Maria’s always been weak around men and she went with the thieves without fuss. They took her away in the back seat of a red, Hyundai taxi.

“When we realized we’d never see you again, we mooed big time.

“They took our baby sister to town and, and …we all started crying. It made a noisy background for the call.”

“Calm down Señora, we’ll find your cow. There are only a few roads from Coronado, and we’ll find her. Calm down and stop mooing. Alright?”