Cow Bells

Cow bells, and under them the quiet.

The meadow and forest does not know it is a medicine cabinet. Wild thyme, knapweed, horsetail, wild carrot — and past them all the ones I cannot yet name. Mushrooms too, the kind the old cultures knew for their powers. A first-aid kit that seeds itself. A landscape that treats what no kit reaches.

It is also a classroom, a testing ground for one's skill and adults' patience, a place to sit until the fire burns down.

There were days the cow bells went unheard — children's laughter and voices over them: playing, complaining, shouting.

We worked and hiked. We sat at the fireside and traded the little English and the little Ukrainian we had between us. By the end, everyone owned more of both than they started with.

We disagreed. We found solutions.

We ate the best watermelon in Ukraine. Kherson watermelons, grown near the front line, under drones.

An artist came and taught new techniques. Everyone had something they were good at, something they loved — superpowers, we called them.

Cows found the grounds three times. Three times they were walked back to their pasture. The neighbour's goat needed milking; turns were taken learning to milk her. The drinking was more popular than the milking.

Now the meadow holds the quiet.

Твердий змуруємо гостинець і за нами
Прийде нове життя, добро нове у світ.

We will pave the hard road, and after us
new life will come, a new good into the world.

— Ivan Franko, "Kameniari"

The new life came to the mountains, laid stones on a path, and went home.

Are we stonecutters?

Days 36–44 — Aufbau — Soil and Peace
Verkhovyna, Carpathian Mountains, Ukraine
© 2026 Michel Garand | Soil and Peace | CC BY-SA 4.0
stewardship@ubec.network