Adapt, adapt, otherwise you'll fail! - Adaptability.

Hi, good evening, my adaptable friends.
This is yet another installment of the 18 "Ities" by the Swami. And again one dear to my heart. Or rather, near to my marrow.

You all know I am Dutch, right? The Dutch and cows go together like cheese and crackers.

I like cows. I grew up with those placid bovines right in my back yard, only divided from it by a narrow 'sloot'. I used to hear them snort and cough and moo and fart from my bed. Our neighbour raised steers, for the meat market. They would sometimes wade into the sloot when the weather was really hot, and mistakenly (or not so mistakenly, for our greenery was lush) wander into our garden. My parents would hate this, but it was the highlight of my week. My own private rodeo right at home when Kommer came round to round them up again.

Now, you may all think that to adapt is a good thing. And sure, sometimes it is. But where our Dutch cows are concerned, it isn't.

Dutch cow farmers need a lot of money to keep afloat. Milk comes cheap. So someone, probably one with a HBO degree, has thought up the best way to make the largest profit. For you have to adapt to the times, don't you?

You make the most profit from cows when you keep them inside all year round. This way you save money (don't ask me how, I don't have a degree in keeping cows). Farmers have come up with plausible stories about this, you bet they have. They sound like the stories we get told by pig farmers who keep their pigs in huge pig flats (and no, those pigs never see daylight either). Or, the ones told by chicken farmers who raise either huge 'plofkippen' (exploded chickens) or mutilated scrawny egg-layers that never see daylight.

Before you  get disgusted with me, or bored, have a look at this picture.

What we see here, are happy cows. Okay, and a very happy bull. He is adapting too.

Now, this is a joke. But the subject is no laughing matter.

Cows belong in the meadow. They have a right to be outside. They are herd animals, and should be able to wander around, as it is in their blood. Being cooped up, often tied down, in a barn is CRUEL to them.

Do I eat meat, you now want to know. 

Yup. Bio, organic meat, from happy cows, which I pay through the nose for. Again, I adapted. For I refuse to buy my meat in supermarkets any longer. So (adapt, adapt)I now cycle right to the other side of my town once a week, to go to a proper butchers.

How about you? Do you adapt?