Cows...

You would never think that cows would be a topic that you might find in a travel blog but here it is. When I lived in Belgium I was astounded by the size and shape of their cows. They were scary, a cross of a body builder who had overdosed on steroids and morphed into a cow. This breed is called the Belgian Blue. On further research the Belgian Blue, also dubbed the Incredible Hulk cow, has a genetic mutation in the gene myostatin that counteracts muscle growth. My understanding of this is that not only can the cows not stop growing muscle but this also caused them to grow lean muscles, so they have very little fat on them. The Belgian Blue is basically one big ball of muscle, which causes it to look discussing. (Gentlemen, please keep that in mind, not that we want you flabby but we don’t want you to look like a Belgian Blue.)

In Ireland they don’t have Incredible Hulk cows as in Belgium, they just have monstrously huge cows. They don’t look any different then the cows in the states, they are brown and white or black and white but just three times the size. Desmond my wonderful bus driver to the Cliffs of Moher was full of stories and one of them was about the Irish cows. Desmond wove the story about a desperate farmer that one night didn’t have any water for his cows so before he went to bed he gave them Guinness to drink instead. The next morning the farmer woke up to find his cows had turned black and white! So the next night the farmer gave his other flock of cows Harps and by morning they had all turned brown and white. So now the Irish call black and white cows Guinness cows and brown and white cows Harp cows.