A few months later, my husband brought home Rosie. Rosie was the most beautiful cow I had ever seen. Her face has the delicate bone structure of a deer, not the stockiness of our beef cows. White flecks dot her brown coat, including a jagged heart on her left side. Her big, dark-rimmed eyes suggest a Disney princess, not a bovine. What a birthday gift!

What Rosie taught me about being a creature – and a mother.