’til the Cows Come Home

I grew up on a small dairy farm.  Nowadays there aren’t many farms like ours anymore.  During the warmer season, we let our cows graze on the pasture.  It is much rarer to see that these days.  It is healthier for the cows, and they love being outside.  It has some drawbacks though.  Someone needs to get the cows to milk them.

Luckily, I didn’t have to wake up at 6am to fetch the cows from the field, but I did collect them for their nightly milking.  We herded the cattle back to the barn at 4:30.  Around 4:00, sometimes the cows would return on their own.  They had a sense of when to return.  Also, they showed up at the door when it started raining (they’re smarter than people think).

When the cows returned on their own, they walked at a very slow pace.  Actually, they moved too slow even when we herded them (joke).  Cows are never in a hurry.  This is where the phrase ‘til the cows come home comes from.  It means to continue doing something for a long and indefinite time.  The phrase may have come from Scottish cattle who would be let loose on pasture in the spring and would eventually return when resources were scarce in the autumn.  It dates back to the 1600s.

Example:  I’ll be working on this project until the cows come home.
Example:  And I drank beer with my friend until the cows came home. 

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Reference:
https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/phrases/till-the-cows-come-home/
https://grammarist.com/idiom/till-the-cows-come-home/