zwischen/miete: Uta Ruge

Uta Ruge is a guest in a flat in Havixbeck and reads from her book Die Kühe, mein Neffe und ich.

Cows in the pastures is an image that is deeply rooted in all of us. But what is it like to grow up, live and work with them? Uta Ruge tells us about this in a knowledgeable, personal and historically accurate way.

Cows were smart, cows had names. For the little girl, they were the most interesting animals on the farm where her nephew still runs a dairy farm with 140 cows.
What was it like back then, in the 1950s and 1960s, and what is it like today? And how did it all begin in prehistoric times, when people domesticated the first cattle, travelled with them and eventually settled down and farmed with their help?
Uta Ruge talks about the daily handling of cows, feeding, milking, inseminations and births. She talks about the closeness that arises from the work and about how to learn the necessary distance to the animals at the same time. She has researched the history of the relationship between humans and these large animals, as shown in cave paintings, artefacts and religious tradition. And she has travelled through the villages and reported on how the economic pressure to produce large numbers and the new regulations are threatening the existence of smaller farms.
This excellently researched and superbly narrated book makes clear just how fatal the alienation from our livelihoods is.