How hard has the pandemic been for mental health? So hard, it’s driven some people to seek therapy from farm animals.
“Are there any farms open right now to hang out with animals? I know this is such a weird question, but I just moved here right before COVID so I don’t know the area,” wrote one Redditor as the Delta variant spread around the world last year. “Basically, whenever I was feeling just burnt out and depressed, I would go to my local farm sanctuary or really any farm with animals and it would put me more at peace…. Right now, I’m not in a great place mentally and I think it would help if it’s possible to do.”
“Where can I find a place to pet goats?!” asked another. “Weird question, I know. Been feeling down just need a boost and I miss goats!”
The Dutch fad of koe knuffelen, in which you lean against a cow for hours to obtain a sense of well being, has yet to take off in the Bay Area. But there are plenty of places to commune with judgment-free – and more importantly, COVID-free – farm animals and with luck get a mental lift. On a recent day I went to one of the best of them, Wildcat Canyon Regional Park in Richmond.
The hike started at Alvarado Park just before the main parking lot. You’ll skip a walk up a hill if you don’t do Alvarado, but you’ll also miss out on the unique features of this member of the National Register of Historic Places.
A hundred years ago, the park drew sightseers from all over the Bay who cavorted in its open-air pavilion and dance hall. Some of the original stone structures remain, though it’s a bit unclear what purpose they served. There are several tall obelisks that could have been used to hang clothes lines or perhaps were ceremonial objects for heathen sacrifices, for all I know. The park’s website mentions stone “light standards,” aka lamp posts, so maybe this is them.
Here’s a historic toilet… OK, probably not, but I have no idea what it actually is. I didn’t attempt to use it, so please don’t say I did.
The walk continued up a wide paved trail populated by families with strollers, mountain bikers and dogs galore. A sign warned against feeding coyotes, so I guess they’re here, too. But so far no farm animals. I turned left onto the Belgum Trail and went through a cattle gate to enter the lair of the beast.
The park at this time of year is mounded with hills so green you’d think they should be a Windows desktop image. I continued under cold, drizzly skies that apparently breezed in from the English countryside. A detour to the right brought me to the site of the Belgum Grande Vista Sanitarium. In the early 1900s, there was a mansion here that served those with “nervous disorders.”
“Neighbors called it ‘the crazy house,’” reads an informational sign. “Mental patients, drug addicts and alcoholics were among the residents. The well-to-do families of Piedmont and San Francisco would send their relatives to the remote setting to keep them out of sight.”
The mansion was quite classy, full of mahogany furniture and Tiffany chandeliers and surrounded by an orchard and beehives. Some patients passed their time playing music, attending parties and dancing.
There’s not much left today save for some stonework and a sunken area in the ground. The site has a haunted atmosphere. Invisible birds give high whistles in fat palm trees that seem out of place. The doctor who ran the sanitarium died while fighting a brush fire behind the house – a very California way to go. I turned back onto the main trail.
A pungent smell like musty hay hits my nostrils. Cows! But where are they? They have to be close, given the pies I’m dodging on the ground. I venture up a hillside path that eventually opens up into glorious panoramic views of the Bay waters. Off in the distance are blackish specks – the roving and ever-present cattle herd of Wildcat Canyon.
I’ve been to the park several times and the cows usually seem to be drawn to the middle of the looped trail I prefer, which measures about 2.5 miles. Today they’ve scooted way the heck off into the horizon. I snug my hoodie a little tighter and begin to thread a narrow dirt trail over a rolling incline to the south. After about 10 minutes I crest a hill and – bam, cow!
It’s huge and meaty and making frequent exhalations like a steam train. It moves in a straight line at perhaps ¼ mph, chomping the grass like a hot-blooded mowing machine. Some ways behind it are many other cows doing the same thing.
I consider reaching out to hug the cow – get some koe knuffelen going – but decide not to. First off, you’re not supposed to bother cattle in public parkland; they can be protective of their young, and if there’s an incident, it probably won’t come out well for the human or the cow. Second, I tend to agree with this person that “just by way of establishing some cuddliness expectations, a cow is basically 1,800 pounds of nervous muscle wrapped in a sweaty wool carpet that’s covered in mud, urine and (expletive).”
Instead, I admire the cow from afar and think cow-related thoughts. Do cows ever get sick of grass? Is there a cow heaven and, by association, a cow hell? How many In-N-Out burgers would that thing make, anyway?
I head back onto the Monte Cresta trail and finish the loop, which provides spectacular views of the San Pablo Bay and also some odd primitive-living structures built from tree branches. Is my mood elevated? Maybe a little, as if I’d popped a capsule of St. John’s wort. Or perhaps it’s the endorphins from chugging up hills. Either way, when the social isolation of COVID gets too much to bear, I’ll definitely come out to Wildcat again, seeking the company of cows.
Hike length and difficulty: 2.5 mile loop, not so bad if you don’t mind climbing moderate hills and opening/closing cattle gates
Hike rating: 4.5 out of 5 cowpies
Where to eat nearby: Driving back to Solano Avenue in Albany will get you a wealth of dining options, including some higher-end Indian and Chinese restaurants. But I prefer to head to the 99 Ranch Market in Richmond’s Pacific East Mall and grab something from the seafood counter to cook at home — a Dungeness crab or a live sea bass to broil simply with butter and lemon. Hit the Sheng Kee Bakery on the way out to pick up excellent egg custards and pineapple buns.
Wildcat Canyon Regional Park: 5755 McBryde Ave., Richmond; 888-327-2757, ebparks.org/parks/wildcat-canyon. Find a full list of East Bay parks where there’s cattle grazing year-round at ebparks.org/natural-resources/grazing/parks.
Source: www.mercurynews.com