Green like a pneumonia-type disease or the murky colour of overcooked mashed Jerusalem artichokes.

Despite knowing that bucolic means neither of these it’s still been hard for me to like the word. I’d hear references to bucolic scenes of meadows and meandering streams and I’d wince imagining lots of coughing people and the colour of slimy tea.

So I was surprised when ‘bucolic’ was the first word that popped into my head yesterday. I’d walked out the laundry door to empty the clothesline before sunset. Late afternoon sun was streaming through clouds creating a palette of deep pinks and orange. The paddocks on either side of the creek were glowing with green and golden hues. A dozen different birds were chiming their dusk song from the nearby trees and a large blue crane with wings hunched like a parachute coasted down to land on a dam bank. Our cows had walked in from the back paddock and had gathered near the house with their new young calves, the first time they’d done so since the birthing weeks.

Through the air I heard lyrebird song and then the ridiculous braying of Sam the donkey. Our three eldest calves of the season, Coconut, Pirate and Muddy, were gambolling with their little tails flicked high while the three youngest, Huck, Luna and Amy huddled close to the herd watching my every move with great curiosity. Violet the heifer (pictured top) joined in with a moo in my direction so I walked over to the fence and rubbed her brow with my knuckles. A kookaburra on the branch of the Big Tree began to chortle and was soon joined by another. Together they lifted their throats and broke into a full-volume kooka cackle.

bucolic |byoõ’kälik|
adjective
of or relating to the pleasant aspects of the countryside and country life
ORIGIN early 16th cent. (denoting a pastoral poem): via Latin from Greek boukolikos, from boukolos ‘herdsman,’ from bous ‘ox.’

Bucolic. It’s an odd sounding word but I’m growing to like it.