First Grass

It happens in a single morning. Someone unpins a gate, and the herd walks out of the yard onto grass for the first time in months. They stand for a minute and do nothing. Then one of them puts her head down, and the rest follow.

By afternoon the fields have changed shape. Not the pattern on the ground, the pattern in the air. The cows spread out. They pick over the first growth and leave the longer stems alone. There is a smell that comes up off wet grass in April that you only notice once a year.

The milk follows quickly and within a week you can see it. The cream line thickens and It turns a deeper yellow, almost the colour of straw. The first bottle of the season tastes different to the last bottle of winter. Sweeter and less careful.

We keep a bottle from the last week of winter and a bottle from the first week on grass, side by side in the fridge. The yellow is different. One is pale, the other the colour of straw. You notice it every year, and every year you forget what a difference it is.