Dear Readers;

As promised here is the story of how we received the cow bells written my my eldest daughter Gaura-Gopala Devi Dasi.

Miracle of our Cow-"Belle" Barb 

 One evening I overhead my oldest daughter asking their Grandmother, Lal, what she would like as a gift? She answered "Anything homemade and I would love some cow bells!"

 My Mother and Father were going to be joining us for a Winter Solstice dinner, which we were celebrating on December 23 as well as Christmas. It was a special surprise to be able to have my parents over because not only do they live 1700 KM away, but they own "Govinda's Farm". Being away from the busy responsibility of cow milking and alpaca and calf care, soap making, renovation projects and all of the many tasks of caring for the farm in and of itself is a major challenge. Luckily my sister Lalana and her husband Tyrone were up for it and sacrificed a large chunk of their time off to tend to the farm full time in my parent's absence- I consider this Miracle number 1 within this story. 

 Buying gifts for my parents can be a bit challenging because they are minimalists who do not enjoy supporting consumerism. So when I heard about the wish for cow bells I recalled that my Mother had told me that she worries about her cows/calves getting out of the barn or pasture and heading into the road without being seen-so here was a gift with a purpose, perfect! I began my hunt for them locally, no luck other than some new and not very attractive ones that were at the music store. I than looked at various new and used websites that might sell them within the province of Ontario and still no real luck and what I did find was often new, kind of boring looking and very pricey. Knowing my Mother I thought that finding some vintage would be a better idea so I began to look for this and still was having trouble. Finally I turned to the great vast world of Ebay and found a  set of five vintage bells! There were quite a few people bidding on them, I watched the movement on them intently and noted that the time that the auction was going to end was at exactly the same time as my daughter Laxmi's dance class was also finished. I was nervous about the timing of driving her over to class and making it back on time. My daughter offered to take a taxi cab over so that I could stay home! Her words before taking her cell phone with her to the cab were "win Grandma's bell's for her Mom!" which I thought was very brave for her to do at age 12, Miracle number 2. 

  I entered the battle for the bells. There must have been about 30 or so bids...but I won! Since I had seen other cow bells on sales websites promoting them as home decor items, I wanted to let the Ebay seller know the background to where her bells were going, since maybe its a bit rare these days to have them used on real  cows living on an animal farm sanctuary? Well sure enough, the seller- named Barb, was very touched by my story and offered to donate them to the cause! I was shocked and touched by this gesture! She promised to have them over to us by Christmas morning and I promised to tell my Mother the story of how the bells came to be. Barb and I had a few back and forth emails and she let me know that she had sent them off after correcting my address from what she was expecting to be a Canadian address to the one that was in the Ebay system, this one was located in the U.S (a Kentucky Army base address no less??). I emailed her back to say, no I live in Ontario, Canada, but it was too late. We were now going to have to see if they would possibly be returned to Barb who was still going to kindly and generously cover shipping of getting them to us! This was only a week or so before Christmas so I thought for sure that they would not be back on time, if ever. Then amazingly I received a tracking number for something but I wasn't sure what. There were a few presents that I had ordered so I assumed it was for one of those...I followed the tracking number because secretly I was hoping that they were the bells and than lo' and behold on the 23rd the tracking number had the package arriving at my door.. 

I saw this little box, it had a handwritten address label written by Barb that was replaced by one generated by Ebay, I gave the box a shake and heard the faint sound of 'ding a ding a ding' I opened it and was shocked to see the cow bells!! and on time for Christmas morning gift opening! 

How Ebay corrected a wrong address sent by a seller is beyond me!? How it was corrected and the box navigated the busy Christmas mail service to arrive on time is also beyond me?! Miracle number 3!

We had other family members visiting us who were also there opening up gifts with us on Christmas morning and so between our visitors, my four children and all the rest of us there was quite a flurry of gifts being opened but it just so happened that the cow bells were the last box for my Mother to open. After I recounted to story to my parents they began to tear up, which made me tear up and we were all feeling so touched deep in our heart by how the Cow bells came to Govinda's Farm by our Cow-belle Barb from Missouri :)

The five vintage Christmas bells.

Miracle number 4 was hearing how challenging the drive to see us was for my parent's but they slugged through the bad weather and equally bad roads to come hold their newest grandbaby for the first time at our home and meet my husband's family- most wonderful Winter solstice ever :) 

Yrs,

Gaura-Gopal Devi Dasi 

Head calf Radhe sporting the largest bell.

Twin brother Gopal is sporting the bell which is just a little bit smaller.