Apple trees and Cows

We are trying to do things here as much as possible in an eco-friendly way. We also want to help with the re-introduction of ancient French varieties of fruit as the area used to be renowned for its fruit 50/60yrs ago. To this end we joined the local verger memoire and purchased 8 small apple trees to start and re-create our own orchard. We already have a number of very mature pear, cherry and apple trees but these are starting to die from old age so need replacing. The saplings arrived in early spring so we had to plant them. Now, my idea of planting is a light spade and fork with fine good earth to work. Rude awakening here! I needed to garden using a PICK AXE, the sort of thing your average navvy would be familiar with , not a normal gardening implement! It took me two days to dig 8 holes and put in all the leaf mulch and stuff needed to give the trees the best start possible. TWO days to plant 8 trees ridiculous. Finally they were planted and watered in and given a good talking to just to make sure they understood what they had to do. Summer and they are in full leaf. No blossom but they only 3 yrs old so not expecting any yet. We got up as usual one morning and on looking out of the window saw the cows wandering around outside, they had escaped from the field behind the house. We rounded them up and called the mayor (his cows) and he duly turned up with his sons and took them off to pastures new after having a long conversation with us to pass away the day. It was only after they had gone that we noticed cow tracks heading towards our fledgling orchard. Well you can guess can't you? The cows had broken small branches off two of the saplings but had EATEN one! arrgghhhh, we went round to see the boys and they said no problem they were insured for these type of eventualities and how much were the trees, had we receipts and they would sort it out. Turns out as it less than 50€ it not worth claiming on insurance so could they do anything else? As it happens the eaten tree has actually started shooting again so it not dead so after a bit of negotiating we agreed to settle for a payment of a Roquefort Cheese. This is an excellent creamy blue cheese and is very expensive, so we are very happy and the mayor is as well so all there is to do is shake on it and enjoy the cheese with some wine. Which I am doing now. mmmmmmmm