What a story to divert us from more serious summer topics – Libya, the Eurozone crisis, looting in English cities, that kind of thing!

Yvonne, the runaway Bavarian Holstein 6 year old cow, was not ready to die. For those who havn’t herd, (sic) (surely you have) she broke loose from a farmyard shortly before she was scheduled for a trip to the abattoir – charged an electric fence, and went AWOL – into the surrounding dense forests - and the hunt went on for three months – she even had a reward on her head - until she was discovered by a farmer in his field and brought into custody with the help of a few tranquiliser darts.
Surely she sensed her fate in some way? Extra sensory perception? Morphic Resonance? Who knows.
Now she will live out the rest of her days – with her calf Fries and her sister Waltraud, – in the Austrian Gut Aiderbichl animal sanctuary – where no doubt she will be a huge tourist attraction! They will hope so. They paid £617 for her – about 700 Euros – and presumably similar amounts for her sister and her son.

My father would have loved this story. He loved his cows – and certainly knew them as intensely intelligent animals. Perhaps here Yvonne was showing something beyond intelligence? And her son and sister have much to thank her for - and plenty of time on their hooves to ruminate on it!