The cows are coming
I think of all the things that I experienced in Switzerland and one of the most unexpected was to see (and perhaps more accurately hear) that the cows did in fact wear bells around their necks. When they were grazing, which as you know is basically always, it was as if an orchestra was playing in the hills. But this was just an overture to the true concert that I was to experience. Each autumn the cows come down out of the mountains to spend the winter in the lower paddocks. This is a tradition in Switzerland and one that Mels continues to not only celebrate but also embrace.
The first I realised that this spectacle had begun is when I heard the distant ringing of the bells up in the mountains and Monika looked at me and smiled and remarked, the cows are coming. We took our position on the street with the other excited people and waited while the ringing become louder and louder. Before too long I began to realise that it must not be the same bells that I had seen in the mountains for these had a deep ringing to them.
It is certainly something to see cows walking down the main street of a village decorated in flowers, with no barriers between them and the spectators, only the shepherds directing the way. But the real memory maker for me was the bells around the necks of the cows. Those bells rang with such a depth that I could feel each step of the cows through my whole body; it seemed my heart was beating in time with the march of the cows; it seemed I was connected with them and suddenly I understood why this tradition continued to be embraced.
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