Shade on a hot July morning

Driving to work this morning with the air conditioning blasting from the vents of my otherwise eco-friendly Honda Civic Hybrid, I beheld an interesting sight... Picture, if you will, a large maple tree, one of those old ones that is about three or four feet in diameter. Tall and with branches going out in all directions that would form a large ball of leaves in the sky - if it were not dead. The tall trunk and branches are all visible as if it were the middle of winter (and not a scorching summer day). Picture this skeleton of a tree standing imposingly in the middle of an otherwise empty field, making it look all the larger, and casting its menacing shadow across the field. And in this shadow, which is growing smaller by the minute as the sun rises, picture a loose line of cows...staggered and nudging each other ever so slightly for just a little more shade on a hot July morning. With the temperature expected to reach 33 degrees C today, and the humidity making it feel like about a billion degrees, I find I have yet another reason to be thankful that I am not a cow...