Looking at this fellow here, brings me back to a time many decades ago. Seldom did it occur in Germany, that a person, who had only one cow to call his own, could become a “cottager”. Only in neighboring Poland are there still thousands of families with a single house-cow, which they drive out and tie up to the edge of some grassy pathway. The grazing spot changes from day to day, and it’s a certainty that no one asks about “pasture-rights” along the highways and byways. 

Here in our vicinity, you only see the brown Harz-cattle, which the young cow-herders drive out to pasture from their winter-barns — traversing the mountain meadows and forest pastures in the Harz Mountains as a communal herd. In spring, the driving out of the cattle is quite an occasion, but in the fall, when the cattle are brought back, it’s truly a festival and our little cow-herd should keep this in mind!