Fly the Herd

It started with a postcard. Ottawa the cow received it from a cousin in Ottawa, the city, and it showed snowy parliament towers and a frozen canal. Before long, every cow in the herd was wondering what her own capital city looked like.

"We can't really fly cows around the world," laughed Suzy. "But we can plan the trip on paper."

So Spike, Suzy and Little Thunder turned the hay shed into a flight centre. Spike pinned up a world map. Suzy found a long piece of string and a ruler. Little Thunder put on a pair of pilot goggles he found in the dress-up box, his orange 00329 ear tag poking out the side.

"Captain Thunder," he announced, "ready for flight planning."

They started at home in Canberra. "First stop, Wellington," said Suzy, stretching the string. "That's south-east, across the Tasman Sea. About 2,300 kilometres."

Next, Beijing lay far to the north. Then Helsinki to the north-west, then Ottawa across the Atlantic. Spike wrote each compass direction and distance on a card.

When they added it all up, the round trip was enormous. "Can we make it shorter?" asked Little Thunder.

They tried a different order: Canberra, Wellington, Ottawa, Helsinki, Beijing, home. Suzy measured again. It saved thousands of kilometres.

"Pilots plan like this every day," said Spike. "Less distance means less fuel and less time."

That evening, they read the plan aloud to the herd. Each cow mooed when her city was named. Nobody went anywhere, of course. But every cow went to sleep feeling a little closer to home.