On Being Skittish

Not a new nationality but a state of being when the wind is not of the prevailing variety.
Cows and horses and people, to name but a few species, are all affected by the wind in very similar ways.
Some winds can make you bad tempered. Some are liberating and invigorating.
Today perhaps we experienced Shelley's 'wild west wind' and the cattle here certainly, because cattle never hide their true feelings, and the people here possibly, because people so often do, felt skittish.
We took hay in a small trailer and instead of waiting for us to arrive, or ambling, walking or even hurrying towards us, today, all the cattle cavorted, rushed, leapt and twisted in abandoned, joyous enthusiam and it wasn't just hunger.
The surge of youthful playfulness was more immediate and creatively fullfilling and often the speed achieved saw the animals over-shooting the trailer, necessitating a silent screaching of four-footed brakes, and the bovine equivalent of a patch of black ice managing to turn a car to face the direction it had just come from, but with the visual reality of an aerial leap and a half somersault they eventually returned to the hay.