The coronavirus pandemic has been hell on people’s health and the economy.
It’s also taken a real toll on mental health, with calls to suicide crisis lines rising by thousands of percent and huge increases in the rate of depression and anxiety.
You won’t hear about it on the mainstream news, but people are also really, really lonely. Those who don’t have a partner or whose family lives far away are struggling in very sad ways.
There’s always Netflix right? Not so fast: it’s full of far-left progressive garbage and rarely updated. Disney Plus? They cancel conservatives and ban kids cartoons like Peter Pan for being “racist.”
In any case, TV and sitting around watching entertainment is no replacement for human contact.
Some entrepreneurs see an opportunity in the loneliness and are coming up with new ways to help people alleviate the blues.
Have a Cow
James Higgins lives in Hawaii where he manages the Krishna Cow Sanctuary. Here, he offers hugs by friendly cows to lonely people suffering in the pandemic. Cow sanctuaries like the one run by Higgins are getting more and more popular around the country.
One client, 43-year-old Renee Behinfar from Arizona, went to a nearby cow sanctuary called Aimee’s Animal Farm in Queen Creek, Arizona and had a hug from the two-ton cow and loved it, noting it was her “first real hug of the year.”
The cow was reportedly very cuddly and fell asleep in her lap, causing her to start crying: “In the end, I really didn’t want to let her go,” Behinfar admitted.
How Much is It?
Prices for cow cuddles depend on the specific farm, but at Aimee’s Farm which has about 100 cows the price runs around $75 per hour. Things are very busy and they don’t even have any more sessions available until later this summer.
“They’re just like happy pills, just to be around,” the owner Tahaka said.
The cows enjoy being patted and hugged as well, and people also go to them for love and closeness who have suffered the loss of a loved one or are feeling particularly depressed or alone.
Still, you have to ask:
What kind of a society is so lonely and shut down that people are going to farm animals for love?
A culture that rejects marriage and family life must go to increasingly bizarre lengths to find companionship pic.twitter.com/bj5wG7S4bw
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) March 9, 2021
What’s Going On?
Aimee’s Farm is one place where cows like Moonicorn and Adorabull bring comfort and peace to sad people like 76-year-old Jeannie Whalen who lost her husband recently.
“It brings a smile to my face and just a wonderful sense of awe,” she explains.
Suzanne Vullers who manages a cow cuddle business at her upstate New York Farm said that it’s especially popular for people who live in the city to come up and hug a cow and be out in nature.
“Spending time with large animals like cows, it’s one of the ways that you can do that. You cannot hug your friends, you cannot hug your grandkids. At this point, we still have to be careful. But as people, we have that need to be close to others. The cows are safe, … and they like that interaction as well,” Vullers explains.
There’s nothing wrong with hugging a cow and if the idea appeals to you there’s nothing wrong with going to Google and doing a search. But I still think it’s a little bizarre that one of the booming businesses in America in 2021 is people who are so sad and lonely they want to lie in the grass with large bovines.
It’s time to bring God back into schools, end the lockdowns and go back to family and tradition. The cows can be out in the yard to provide milk for breakfast of a large, happy American family. They can perform their proper role instead of being used for human companionship.
We tried the progressive vision for society and it’s been an unmitigated disaster. It’s time to go back to basics.
