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Thousands watch Vermont cow parade
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP)--Thousands of people turned out June 5 to watch the third annual Strolling of the Heifers.
Close to 100 cows, heifers and young calves decorated with wreaths of flowers were led up Brattleboro's Main Street by farmers and 4-H kids from Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts to salute dairy farming.
Attendance, which surprised organizers, was estimated at 30,000.
"Last year they said we had 20,000 people in the rain, and there's lots more this year," said Orly Munzing of Dummerston, who came up with the festival idea more than three years ago as a way of recognizing the region's struggling dairy farmers.
"I couldn't be happier," she said.
The June 5 parade featured Holsteins, Jerseys, Guernseys, and Brown Swiss cows, two water buffaloes, a camel and a yak.
Family farms in Brattleboro, Guilford and Jacksonville, 4-H clubs from Brattleboro, East Bethel, Randolph and Reading, as well as farms from neighboring towns in Massachusetts and New Hampshire had cow contingents in the parade.
The youngest calf was six weeks old, and the youngest handler, Isabella Thurber of Brattleboro, was 4 years old.
The heifers had names like Pixie and Cookie, and Caramel and Snuggles.
The younger of the two water buffalo, from Star Hill Farm in South Woodstock, ended up getting a ride up Main Street to the Brattleboro Common, while its 18-month old stablemate, Betty, had to be gently pulled along the route by a perspiring crew.
"A water buffalo only has one speed, slow," said Thomas Harty of Randolph, one of the pullers, a former Vermont deputy agriculture commissioner who is now "chief buffalo wrangler," and marketing manager for Star Hill Farm. The farm uses water buffalo milk to make mozzarella cheese.
For Lia Lashley of Nassau, the Bahamas, the June 5 parade and festival were a first-in-a-lifetime event.
"I've never seen a cow before," she said, as she and her family sampled some cheddar cheese.
"I never imagined they were so big or so small."
The four-day event, which ended June 6, included an art show and silent auction, a ball at the Putney Inn, and farm tours.
Date: 6/24/04
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