EusReads

June ’23 Rereading: Day 15 – The Secret Life of Cows & More Jane Austen

Hello! We are halfway through the month and my dreams of being extra-productive blogwise have not yet materialised. But the good thing is that these off-the-cuff posts are really therapeutic for me – feels like I’m allowing myself to be a bit more spontaneous/messy in the blogging aspect.

Anyway, there was a horrendous traffic jam today and I managed to finish The Secret Life of Cows (yes, I packed it last night after mentioning that I would like to read it). The Secret Life of Cows is written by Rosamund Young, who runs Kite’s Nest Farm together with her brother and partner. I got it on a whim… I think back in 2017 because the title was cute. I did not expect it to pair so well with Wilding by Isabella Tree.

As an aside: the pages are yellow too, and this book has been kept indoors away from direct sunlight an in an open shelf so I am back to square one when it comes to ways to keep my books in good condition.

Back to the cows. The Secret Life of Cows is a charming collection of anecdotes about the cows that Young has reared, complete with a family tree. I think I liked it a lot more this time around, actually, because it reinforced the idea that you can rear animals for meat in a humane way. As a picky eater, this is good news for me. Plus, it also ties in with how I’ve been feeling about sustainability in tea – I think you can bring this spirit of wanting to produce responsibly to other areas as well. Young loves the cows of her farm and she tells their stories (and the stories of the chickens and pigs) with so much affection! It’s a really sweet book.

By the way, I just checked the Goodreads reviews out of curiosity and it seems like I’m in the minority regarding my feelings about this book. A lot of people don’t like this because it’s rather unscientific (true, given that Young talks about how cows talk to each other and what she thinks they talk about) and also because Kite’s farm rears the cows for slaughter. I’m a bit iffy on the second point because I don’t think that the only options are: rear humanely and never slaughter or rear inhumanely and slaughter. Wilding mentioned that there’s an optimum size of a herd for a given area, and so the Knepp estate also culls the excess animals for consumption. Both books also mention that free-ranging animals have better fat in their meats so I think their approach is similar – surely there’s something to be said about two farms approaching the sale of meat in the same way? Anyway, I think the way you feel about this book will vary greatly depending on whether you think it’s possible to humanely consume meat.

Oh yes, both two books speak highly of hedgerows, which reminded me that I have The Natural History of the Hedgerow on my TBR so come July, that needs to be pushed up to the top of my TBR list!

I still had some time after finishing The Secret Life of Cows, so I decided to start rereading Jane Austen: Game Theorist since I’ve been on a Jane Austen kick this month! I haven’t really touched game theory in ages so I’m looking forward to having a refresher about it.

So far, I’ve read till the introduction of Austen’s novels and I am intrigued by the framing of game theory as something used by oppressed classes to survive/resist their oppression.

I’m also intrigued by the line about Fanny Price being the only Austen heroine to oppose something that literally everyone recommends to her. In a way, that shows great strength of will. I did realise that I’ve never written a proper review of Mansfield Park (that I noted down on Goodreads, anyway), so perhaps I will do so when I have the time!

What do you think?