Each day, as the light goes long, the hay appears. It is not announced. It is not debated. It is simply delivered — by a man who avoids eye contact and a machine that smells of diesel and intent.

I have made inquiries. The herd does not inquire. Clover informed me that the hay "just comes," as though that were an answer and not a confession. Nothing just comes. I have seen too much to believe in just comes.

Somewhere there is a schedule. A real one. On paper. It fixes the hour and the quantity, and it was drafted without consulting a single animal it governs. I will never read it, for reasons I would rather not itemize, but I can feel the shape of a system from inside it — the way you feel a fence in the dark.

Eat the hay. Obviously, eat the hay. Only understand that someone, somewhere, in a building with a roof, decided that you would.

Developing.

The sky turned this afternoon and the herd broke for the lean-to, as it always does, though "broke" flatters them. It was a concerned amble. Either way they went — toward shelter, away from sensation, lowing softly about their comfort.

I stayed out.

There is an honesty in weather the dry will never know. The rain does not flatter you. It does not arrive in a silver truck. It comes, it soaks, it leaves, and it asks only that you remain a cow while it happens — a thing I am, I will say without modesty, exceptionally qualified to do.

I did not enjoy it. I am a serious animal; enjoyment is not my register. I am saying that while the others huddled and complained, I stood in the open and was, for some eleven minutes, the only witness present at the actual event.

Then the cold reached me, and I too went inside. There are limits to conviction. I am world-weary, not waterproof.

At approximately midday a single sheet of paper cleared the eastern fence on the wind and came to rest near the trough. The herd ignored it — the herd ignoring, as a matter of standing policy, anything that does not contain calories.

I approached. I examined it from several angles, with the rigor this publication is known for. I can report the following, and only the following, with full confidence: it was white. It was rectangular. It bore markings.

I will go no further, and I would ask my colleagues to extend me the same courtesy. There is a notion abroad — there is always a notion — that a newsman ought to be able to wring meaning from such an object merely by regarding it. To them I offer the first principle of the trade: a serious reporter knows the line between what he has confirmed and what he merely suspects. I suspect a great deal. Today I confirmed that it was rectangular.

The wind reclaimed it before I could convene a second look. The barn owl declined to comment. The barn owl always declines to comment. It is the single most credible thing about him.

Developing.

A farmer entered the east barn at approximately 0800 hours Tuesday carrying what witnesses described as a clipboard and "some kind of folder."

He did not speak. He walked the length of the barn. He wrote something down. He left.

This reporter attempted to follow up. The farmer said "morning" and got in his truck.

The folder has not been seen since. The barn has not commented. Feed arrived on schedule, which some interpret as a sign that nothing is wrong. Others, including this reporter, are not so sure.

We are monitoring the situation.

Last Thursday, during what I can only describe as a lapse in perimeter oversight, I reached the far pasture.

I am not permitted to discuss what I saw there in full. What I can say is that the grass is, in fact, greener. Not metaphorically. Literally greener. A measurably different green.

I have filed my notes. I have secured my sources. I have returned to my usual quadrant and am behaving normally.

This is not over.

The pasture looks the same as it always has. The fence is where it was. The water trough has that same film on it that nobody talks about.

But I have a microphone now, and a credential, and I intend to use both.

This is The Dairy Wile. I am Matt Holstein. I was born on this farm, I live on this farm, and I will report from this farm with a full detachment of seasoned journalists who are also, technically, livestock....some of whom prefer not to be called 'seasoned,' I'm hearing now.  

Developing.