Horrible ride today (this is long - and graphic)
My apologies to any Belgians who may be on this board (in advance) - I left for my ride today - went down our road and stopped because my brake had somehow beeen disconnected - we live in the middle of farmland on the edge of the Ardennes region and we are surrounded by wheatfields and cows. I have ranted to my husband on numerous occasions about the way the people around here treat their animals. In my opinion it's criminal. I have been known to feed "our" cows celery and crackers and toss the mowed grass over the fence for them and talk to them. So I was stopped on my bike and I turned around to talk to the cows and I saw this poor cow with her ear just covered in blood... and her eye - in fact I wasn't even sure she still had an eye it was so mangled ... and the whole upper half of her body was tinged pink. It was as though blood was oozing out her pores. I've never seen anything like it and I hope never to again. How could anybody allow anything to suffer like that. I told my husband just this morning that as much as I love it out here we need to move - I won't be able to make it through another summer out here. I get so upset about this because I just can't understand how nobody can care about these cows. I don't like having the cows in our field because of the flies - but I watch over them while they're here and I still throw grass over the fence whenever I mow the yard and if they get injured I keep a close eye out for them because nobody else will. This will haunt me for a long time. Sorry this was so long. Thanx for giving me a place to get this out.
Pat