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One of the joys of seeing a new book hit the shelves is that I get to show the world a little more work by my good friends John and Julie. They shot the cover photo for Coop, and in an added bonus, the publisher used ten of their photographs as chapter headers.

Here's a shot they took of me and my rooster.

And here's a shot they took of one of our pigs bathing.

We sure enjoyed getting pigs and chickens, and I sure enjoyed writing about them. But if my fondest dreams came true, I would have a herd of big slow-moving Holsteins. I wouldn't milk them, you understand. Rather I'd ask that they arrange themselves artistically along the pastureland hillsides, because few things soothe my soul like the sight of black-and-white cows ranged across the distant green.

Throughout Coop, I circle back to revisit my childhood on a northern Wisconsin dairy farm, which gave me an excuse to write about Holsteins. Growing up with cows was like having circus animals in the yard, and we drew great entertainment from them. When we turned them out in the spring after a winter of confinement, they kicked their heels and tried to prance for short bursts, although it is difficult to skip and jump when your udder is bobbling around like a twenty-gallon water balloon. Dad would let us ride the young heifers until we got bucked off. The animals were so excited to be outside they'd rub their heads in the barnyard dirt. In the summer bot flies laid eggs in the cows' ankles. The larvae would migrate upward to the cows' backs and grow, forming lumps just beneath the hide. We'd squeeze the lumps until a greasy grub popped out. The rural life is rich with various entertainments.

During milking or while watching the cows cavort to pasture, we kids practiced our mooing. We learned the curious moo, the hungry moo, and the blatty little calf moo, for which you cupped your hands like a mute. We also learned to call cows with a shortened version of the "Come, bossie," that came out "M'Bawsss!" The "M" is done in a hummed falsetto, then you break your mouth open on the "B" sound and finish the call open-mouthed. We also learned to listen for the cow-in-heat moo, a much more urgent and high-pitched call than your standard lowing. When we heard that call, we would watch to see who was making it, and we'd also watch to see if the cows were "riding" each other. If we figured out who it was, we'd let Dad know. Then we'd get out the American Breeders Service bull catalog. I devoted a couple pages of Coop to the ABS catalog and the rather fundamental art of artificial insemination.

Because the literary world hungers for such knowledge, I often read from the artificial insemination section at readings. And then I tack on this description of my dream cow:

There was, in Chippewa County, a cow that would make you despair all other cows — a gloriously big-boned Holstein, deep in the fore rib, long in the spine, and fronted with a brisket the lines of which brought to mind the prow of a felted barkentine. Her dewlap rose to a sturdy throat, which gave way to a sweeping jawbone, which attached to a generally trapezoidal skull, crowned with a bony pompadour. Her eyes were translucent brown dewdrops the size of mallard eggs, fringed with delicate swaths of lash. Her nose, pebbled and moist, was the size of a large boxing glove; the nostrils, while large enough to admit an English sparrow each, were delicately drawn, and her breath — grassy, with just a hint of hops — was not unpleasant. Astern, her sturdy, up-tilted tail head rose from betwixt the twin thurls of an architectural backside, the tail itself dropping on a straight, clean line past her pinbones to her hocks, where it plumed and fluffed to a voluminous switch that whispered against her dewclaws when she walked. Girthy but firm at 1,800 pounds, the Holstein stood 60 inches at the withers, poised on clean hooves and draped nose to heels in a tight-napped pelt the color of drift snow and coal tar. At the vertex of flank and thigh, her udder bloomed a sculpted marvel, big as a bushel, firm as a block of butter, boldly veined, furred with clean white hair the texture of toasted velour, and anchored by twin milk veins running the abdomen like woolly ropes. The teats, arranged about the four corners in a dignified quartet, were sturdy, but symmetrical and gracefully tapered. To press your cheek against this udder was to worship at the terminus of a genetic journey traceable to the Batavians and Friesians who first mingled their herds in the Rhine Delta around the time of Christ. This was a temple to butterfat, a shrine to calcium and cream, a ruminant Helen capable of launching a thousand milk mustaches. This was a glorious, clover-fueled, bovine dream.

This was Chippewa's Chipper Princess Turboline.

Seriously. I like cows.