A childhood belief about general

When I was little, my mother said that you could tell what the weather was going to be by looking at cows in the pasture. If they were standing up, it meant it would be sunny. If they were laying down, it meant rain (or maybe it was the other way around?) Anyway, one day, we drove by a farm and I saw that some of the cows were standing up and some laying down. I asked my mother what that meant, and she said "Scattered showers."