Molly Potter and Rose DeFreitas were 11 and 12 the summer they showed up at the Miles Smith Farm Summer Camp in 2022. They met on day one. Each was handed a calf to train, and that's when it started — friendship with each other, and love of cattle.
Cattle are having a moment. Scottish Highlands especially — the shaggy, horned supermodels of the bovine world. After a year off, my cattle (and I) have been invited back to the Highland Games in Lincoln.
Anyone raising long-haired Highland cattle — or honestly any bovine with a tail, which is most of them — knows what I'm talking about. The burrs have invaded, and they've brought two different armies. I spend a chunk of every August with scissors in my hand, prying burrs from bovine ears.
We know the benefits of therapy dogs and the remarkable healing of therapy horses, but cattle deserve the same recognition: their healing qualities have been largely ignored...until now.
Training calves is a lot like training children. Both have short attention spans, and both would rather play than work, as I discovered at the 2024 Miles Smith Farm camp.
What's the point of a cow experience for people who can't see the cows? I said yes anyway, figuring I'd learn something. That part I got right.
