It's the Tiny Things - Hugging Cows

A visit to The Gentle Ban 🐂 🦃 🐖 🐓

If you’re new here, every month I gather up a few Tiny Things to share. Magic can be found in the most ordinary moments if we take time to notice them. ✨🌙

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I’ve been wanting to share this one. Carrying it around in my back pocket, hoping I wouldn’t forget.

On Mother’s Day, I visited The Gentle Barn.

I’d only been there once before, and honestly, the original draw was the baby pigs. They had rescued a large group of them around Christmas, and I wanted to meet them.

What I didn’t expect was the pasture full of cows. Enormous cows. Truly gigantic. They had yoga balls they chased around like toys, and there was even a resident dog who had befriended a baby cow — completely inseparable. Cows, I realized, are really just oversized dogs. Somehow I had never known that until I went there.

The staff encourages everyone to hug a cow. They told us there’s nothing quite like it.

I was hesitant at first. They are so big.

Not my husband. He immediately draped himself across one of them like a child reunited with a beloved puppy. They both looked completely at ease. Instant therapy for everyone involved.

I crouched down beside one cow and slowly reached behind his large ears, rubbing gently. A deep sound came from him — somewhere between a moan and a purr — and he leaned into my chest, tipped his head back, and looked directly into my eyes.

Mine immediately filled with tears.

We all crave love.

At places like this, the animals become so safe with their caretakers that, for a moment, you become part of their world too. You’re welcomed into the fold. And in that moment, his need for comfort didn’t feel all that different from my own.

I think we spend so much time focusing on differences — separating ourselves from animals, from each other, from the natural world. But we all belong to this earth. We all carry instincts. We all long for connection.

And when those barriers soften, we can comfort one another in ways that don’t need words.

That same day, a chicken fell asleep in my arms. I scratched beneath a turkey’s wings and she stepped a little closer. An old rescue donkey — once used as a drug mule — kept following me around, asking for a few more pets.

I suppose most living things carry some kind of trauma.

And maybe healing begins the same way every time: two open hearts finding each other, even briefly, and simply being present together.

No language required. You can feel more than you can put words to.

That feeling is love.

Until Next Time 🌙 ✨
Kim

P.S. If you live in the Los Angeles or Middle Tennessee you can visit a Gentle Barn. I highly recommend it.