Farm Life

Fun Farmer Facts ~ by Pam Crooks

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It was National Agriculture Week a few weeks ago, and the small town where we have our lake cabin is surrounded by farms.  In celebration, the local newspaper featured interviews of local farmers, which made for interesting reading.

Here are a few observations about how farming has changed for these seasoned farmers, all well into their 70s and 80s, and who have farmed all their lives.

  • One of the biggest changes is GPS guided farm equipment.
  • Another – farmers now use computers to run their farms.
  • Automatic steering.  (I remember when my brother-in-law got air conditioning in the enclosed cab of his combine.  He thought he’d died and gone to heaven. I imagine he felt the same way about automatic steering.)
  • Irrigation and technology use has changed dramatically.

Back in the day, tractors were built to last. One farmer has a tractor that has been in operation for 71 years. (Can you imagine a car lasting that long?  Or your dishwasher? LOL.)

Another recalls his father giving him his own tractor before he was even 9 years old, and he’d operated one when he was younger than that.  Wow.

Advice:

Every farmer must have a strong work ethic and work at that work ethic. It’s a daily commitment, 24/7/365.  You really should grow up on a farm to develop a love for it.

It’s very difficult to get started in farming these days, and you almost have to acquire a farm through inheritance.

Some fun facts:

  • The average time a farm operator spends on the farm is 58.3 years.  (I couldn’t help but compare that to my husband who worked for Union Pacific RR almost right out of high school, and he retired after 39 years.)
  • 11% of today’s farmers once served in the military.
  • One bushel of corn produces enough syrup to sweeten 324 can of soda pop.
  • An acre of corn will evaporate 4,000 gallons of water per day.
  • Some golf tees are made from corn products.
  • Americans consume 17.3 BILLION quarts of popcorn each year.
  • Each soybean plant grows 60-80 pods, and each pod has three beans inside.
  • Each year, the average American consumes 112 pounds of beef.
  • The average person will eat twenty 240-lb pigs in their lifetime.
  • Horses drink 10 – 20 gallons of fresh water every day.
  • A cow’s udder can hold 25 – 50 pounds of milk.
  • It takes 10 pounds of milk to make one pound of cheese.
  • A person will eat about 250 eggs a year.
  • The longest recorded flight of a chicken is only 13 seconds long. (Not known for their flying, right?)
  • According to an online survey, 7% of US adults believed chocolate milk came from brown cows.  (Um, really?)
  • From 2007 to 2012, America had a net loss of 90,000 farms. (How’s that for depressing?)
  • Between 1840 and 2000, the percentage of the American labor force engaged in agriculture-related work plummeted from a robust 70 percent to a measly 2 percent. (More depressing.)
  • Women make up 36% of the total number of U.S. farm operators.
  • Due to their careful management, more than half of America’s farmers intentionally provide habitat for deer, moose, birds and other species, rewarding in significant population increases. (Cool, huh?)
  • Pigs can run a mile in 7 minutes. An average runner can do a mile in 7 – 10 minutes, a novice runner in 12 – 15 minutes.  (I wouldn’t try to race a pig.  You’ll probably lose.)
  •  It takes one hive of bees 55,000 miles of flight to produce one pound of honey.  It takes approximately two million flowers for bees to produce that one pound of honey. Fortunately, bees are fast flyers – up to 15 miles per hour, buzzing from flower to flower.  (Makes me appreciate the little bear bottle of honey in my cupboard even more.)

Have you ever lived on a farm?

Could you be a farmer or his wife? 

If you’re a woman alone, do you think you could manage a farm on your own?

 

The 2nd book in our Pink Pistol sweet western romance series is newly released!

Will romance hit its mark when true love is the target?

Desperate for a fresh start, Rena Burke journeys from Texas to Oregon with only her father’s pistol and a plodding old mule for company. She takes a job working with explosives at a mine, spends her free time emulating her hero Annie Oakley, and secretly longs to be loved.

Saddlemaker Josh Gatlin has one purpose in life and that is his daughter. Gabi is his joy and the sunshine in his days. Then he meets a trouser-wearing woman living life on her own terms. Rena is nothing like his perception of what he wants in a wife and mother for his child, but she might just prove to be everything he needs.

When tragedy strikes, will the two of them be able to release past wounds and embrace the possibilities tomorrow may bring? Find out in this sweet historical romance full of hope, humor, and love.

BUY ON AMAZON

 

Dryer Screens and Wrecked Fences

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Happy April! It’s so nice to be here with you again today.

Now, I know some of you have figured out that a lot of the things in my books are based on my real-life experiences on the farm. It’s not just about the adventures we have, but it’s also about relationships and the care of them that I love including in my stories.

The real-life story I wanted to tell you today has a little of both – adventure and the care and handling of relationships. : )

It’s been wet here in Virginia, and the two connected pastures where our cows are rather muddy. They’re also very steep—too steep to plant—which is why they’re pasture.

Last Thursday as it started to snow, Watson drove out to check the cows. I rode along. I think he likes me to go, that way he has someone to try to scare while he’s driving. (Any of you have husbands like that?)

The temps were right around freezing, so there was mud, then a little bit of ice on the top of the mud. It wasn’t frozen solid, just had a slippery crust on it. Then, with the snow coming down, there was a dusting of even more slippery snow on top of the slippery ice on top of the slippery mud.

Did I mention it was slippery?

I’m going to complain about my husband a bit, so I think I’d better start out by admitting that I am not a good driver. I mean, I am a very courteous driver who absolutely never gets angry while driving. I just don’t. (No matter what some other driver does to me, I know I have done much worse—on accident—to someone else. How can I get upset at anyone?)

I know I’m a bad driver, though, because I have totaled two cars.

Enough about me. Let me tell you about my husband. : )

We drive into the pasture and pretty much slide almost to the bottom. By the way, at the bottom of the pasture is the creek. A fence separates the upper pasture from the lower one.

So, we have the Gator in four-wheel drive, and we drive along the creek, checking the other bank for mama cows who want a little privacy to have their babies.

There’s nothing there on Thursday, but because of the snow falling, it’s a really good day for a cow to freshen, so we go around the fence. Watson tells me to “hang on” while he goes through the bottom of the gully as fast as he can to try to get a run to make it up the other side of the hill.

It was a good idea.

We make it halfway up.

There’s a gully on our left side (it deepens fast and is a favorite spot for new mamas to have their babies), and the fence is behind us. We’re stopped, but the wet mud, ice, and snow has made it so if we start backward, then turn sideways, we’ll slid downhill.

Watson kind of excels in situations like this.

We’re sitting on the hill in the Gator, I’ve got a hold of the door handle and the handle (that was so thoughtfully provided) on the dash, and Watson looks at me and says, “Now what?”

You know how when you’re in a situation like that and your brain is going a hundred miles an hour and you have all these thoughts? Well, one of my thoughts was that I should have put my seatbelt on.

The Gator actually does have seatbelts, but while I wear it religiously in my car (and you know who doesn’t, right?), we never wear them around the farm because you’re getting in and out all the time, to check cows and open gates and roll bales out, etc. It would be a real pain in the tush to put a belt on and off.

I’m honestly not even sure they work, since no one has ever actually worn one.

Anyway, I’m sitting there thinking this would be a good time to test the seatbelt out, but while my brain is coming up with all these really good thoughts, I can’t get my hands to work. (It might have something to do with there not being a crowbar in the cab of the Gator to pry my fingers off the handles.)

Maybe I’m the only one who has this problem, but my husband never wants my advice before we get into trouble. It’s always when we’re sitting in the middle of a mess that he suddenly remembers that I might have something to add to the conversation.

So, he’s waiting on me to answer him. Ha.

So I say, “I’m pretty sure we’re going to hit the fence.”

He looks over his shoulder, behind us. The fence is about thirty yards straight down the slippery hill. “Yeah.”

“It’s old, and we’re going to flatten it.”

He doesn’t need to look this time. Instead, he looks at me and gives me that grin that says he knows he should be in deep trouble, but he’s really looking forward to this. His eyes kind of sparkle as he says, “Yeah.”

I’m not going to waste my energy getting upset. There’s no point. So I say, “But that fence needs to be replaced anyway, so really, someone needs to take it out. Why not us?”

“Good point,” he says, just before he releases the brake, yanks the wheel to the left, and guns the gas.

Watson’s goal is (apparently) to slide around parallel to the fence with enough momentum to run along the edge of it as we slide downhill, hitting the gully at the lowest point, just above the corner fence post, and slipping around the fence.

We almost make it.

We smack the fence with the hard plastic part of my door. To my great surprise, the fence holds, we slide around, and when we finally stop about three centimeters from the edge of the creek, I wind my window down and stick my head out, noting that there isn’t even a scratch on the Gator.

Our bull (all two thousand plus pounds of him) is in the creek, slightly disturbed at our untimely and rather rude arrival.

I don’t know how many of you have ever looked a bull in the eye before, but he’s got his head up and is staring right at us. I’m sorry, I don’t mean this to be rude, but bulls just do not look smart.

Anyway, Watson and I are staring at him, and I say, “I’m pretty sure in our marriage contract it says that if we get stuck in mud, it’s your job to get out and push.”

I’m also pretty sure that Watson never read our marriage contract. Actually, I know he didn’t, since there’s no such thing, but I’ve been using this line for years and he’s never caught on. Most recently, I’ve been using it about the dryer, since for the last ten months, our dryer hose has been plugged somewhere and our dryer hasn’t been getting the clothes dry.

This annoys me, since I’m the one who runs the dryer. I’ve asked him to fix it (since it states in our marriage contract that anything that needs to be fixed under the house is his job), but he insists that there’s no problem with the dryer, I’m just not smart enough to run it.

Hmm.

So, I was kind of patient about it for a while, but lately I’ve been folding his clothes wet and putting them in the closet like that. It annoys him, so then both of us are annoyed, which seems fair to me.

Last week, he was getting ready to leave for Pennsylvania, realized the clothes in the closet were wet, took them all back down to the dryer, and put them back in.

After he left, I realized he’d taken them out but hadn’t folded them or taken them back up or put them away. So…I’m annoyed again, and I carry the basket up (which I’ve already done once—I’ve also already folded the clothes, and I’ve already put them away!) So…I’d really like to say that I did it all again with a smile, but…I didn’t. Instead, I open up the closet and…dump my husband’s clothes on the floor before I slam the door shut.

Right. You know how you feel guilty about something even as you’re doing it, but you just can’t stop?

So, anyway, that night, the girls made me watch the movie, I Still Believe. I know it’s been out for a while, but I’ve never seen it. Has anyone who’s seen it watched it without crying? LOL. So, I’m sitting there while a trio of sobs is sounding from the girls, and I’m saying to myself, “I will not cry, I will not cry, I WILL NOT CRY.”

I’m not sure why it is so important that I not cry during movies, but it’s a thing for me. So, I don’t cry, but through the whole movie, God keeps reminding me about the clothes on the closet floor and how I should be grateful for what I have rather than being a brat about what I don’t.

That’s really not what the movie is about, but it’s funny how we see the lesson we need.

So, yeah, the girls go to bed.

I go upstairs and pick up the clothes from the floor of the closet, fold them, and put them away neatly.

Then I get my computer, sit down on the floor, and Google dryer vent hose.

After I’m done with that, the internet is (surprisingly) still working, so I watch a couple YouTube videos on replacing window and door screens. Even though it says quite clearly in our marriage contract that Watson is also responsible for fixing the screens (okay, it doesn’t say that, either), I’m still working on this kindness thing (that I’ve been working on for decades) and why in the world should I be getting annoyed about the dryer and screens when I’m quite capable of fixing them myself [I think : ) ]!

Anyway, I left off with Watson and I staring at the bull.

While Watson is probably never going to fix my dryer or screens, have I mentioned that he is a fantastic driver?

He managed (somehow) to get us out of there, without falling into the creek, without either of us having to push, and Mr. Bull only got a little bit of mud slung on him. I eventually got my fingers pried off the door handles, and eventually (several days later), Watson quit grinning.

Alright, I’m having a huge party in my Facebook Reader Chat this week and I would just love for you all to join me here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/jessiegussman

Thanks so much for spending time with me this week!

A Few Random Cow Facts

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I love random facts (science teacher) and today I’m sharing some cow facts with you.

First the nomenclature–A cow is a female bovine. A bull is an intact male bovine. A steer is a neutered male. A heifer is a young cow that has not yet had a calf.  Cattle is the term for a group of various bovines. I’m calling them all cows today. 🙂

Now the factoids–

Cows can run up to 25 miles per hour, however, they only run in short bursts.

Cows can jump a 5-foot fence, often from a standing position.

Cows have eyes set to the side and have trouble seeing directly in front of them. They see very well to the side and behind, so it’s difficult to sneak up on them. Their panoramic vision is close to 360 degrees.

Cows are super social. They depend on the herd for protection, so they don’t like to be alone. Cows will sometimes make best friends.

Cows can smell up to six miles away.

Cows are good swimmers. A cow in the Netherlands swam 62 miles during a flood.

Cows live 15-20 years.

Cows can weigh up to 3,000 pounds. Most weight between 900 and 2,000 pounds.

Cows have no upper teeth in the front of their mouth. They grind their food between the teeth in their bottom jaw and a hard dental pad on the roof of their mouth. They have molars in both upper and lower jaws, however, and when they burp their food back into their mouths to chew for a second digestion (the cud) they chew with the molars to further break it down.

Cows do not really have four stomachs–they have a compartmentalized stomach with each of the four compartments having a different job in digestion.

Oxen are cows or bulls that have been bred to work. They are larger and stronger than the average bull or cow, thus the term “as strong as an ox.” If male, they are generally neutered.

Cows produce 20-40 quarts of saliva a day. They need this much saliva to get dry hay processed in their digestive system. The saliva also aids in cud chewing.

And finally…cow tipping is probably NOT a thing, because cows sleep laying down.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the random cow facts. If it weren’t for cows, we’d have no cowboys, so I’m grateful for this amazing animal!

 

 

 

 

The Just Man Falleth Seven Times, yet Riseth Again

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This past week, we separated the last of the spring calves from their mothers. My middle daughter was in PA and Watson was with friends, so Julia and my youngest daughter and I got the herd moved into the corral behind the barn ourselves.

Once we got the bulls out, which was a little touchy, it wasn’t hard work to separate the calves.

I love working with my daughters. We laugh and have a good time. They’re considerate, and there’s never any argument about who’s doing more work. In fact, we kind of compete as to who can do the most. We’re still relaxed and don’t get crazy about stuff. It’s fun. : )

I did miss one calf—all my fault—and it started back out toward the pasture with a group of cows. Julia and my youngest daughter both said later that they didn’t realize I could run that fast, and I have to admit I didn’t realize it either, but I did catch the calf and managed to get him back so we didn’t lose him in the pasture.

We worked steadily and finally got all the steers in one pen and all the heifers in another with all the cows back out to pasture.

Once we had that done, we took a little break. The girls stood with me, leaning against the fence, hot and sweaty, but smiling and agreeing that it had been a really fun morning.

I love that when you do it right, work is fun, and I honestly enjoy that family time more than game nights or movie nights and almost as much as ice cream on the porch. : )

When Watson was ready to head to PA, he backed the trailer up to the chute and we ran the groups of calves through.

The chute is about 2-1/2 feet wide. Wide enough for a full-grown, one-ton bull to squeeze through. The calves we were working with were between 400 and 600 pounds, so there was a little wiggle room as they went up the chute.

My youngest daughter and I were pushing the calves into the chute, then she closed the gate behind me while I stayed behind the last calf, urging him to keep going.

Watson was at the trailer, running the end gate and keeping the calves on while also keeping them from turning around at the elbow at the end of the chute—the only place wide enough for them to turn.

Julia and Ethyl stood outside of the chute to the left, pushing the front calves up. Ethyl got a little carried away and bit a calf’s leg, which offended that calf and he kicked back. He missed Ethyl but hit Julia through the gap in the boards.

She’s not gotten kicked much, and that was a tough one—right on the knee. It’s swollen and black and blue, but she assured us she was okay and kept working.

The first two batches of calves went on without any other incident.

I was running the third batch up when Watson couldn’t keep the calves on the trailer and also keep them from turning. One got completely turned around and came back down the chute toward me.

There’s not much room to grab a toehold, but I managed to get up—one leg on each side of the wall of the chute—but not high enough.

That calf barreled down, went under me, and knocked my feet out backward, so I fell facedown in the mud.

Now, I don’t know if you all watch bull riding, but if you have, I’m sure you notice that when those guys get bucked off and land flat out on the ground, they don’t stay down. I’m not sure how old I was when I learned when you fall down, you get up immediately, but I’m glad I did.

I was at least standing when the second calf hit me.

I didn’t have time to get up on the sides of the chute, but I was very thankful for that little bit of wiggle room. It would have hurt a lot worse if it had been a cow trying to squeeze past me. I slapped against the boards but not hard enough to break anything.

Have any of you ever gotten a bruise on the callouses right below where your fingers join your hand? I never had before, but I had a nice black one, almost a rectangle, there from holding onto the rough-cut lumber when my feet were yanked out from under me. In my opinion, my bruise wasn’t quite as nice as Julia’s knee. Although to hear us both moaning and groaning later, I think we hurt equally bad. ; )

Thankfully, my youngest thinks quick on her feet, and when the first calf came back, knocking my feet out, she had opened the gate behind me, letting both calves back out into the holding pen, so they didn’t trample me again. : )

We brought those two up a second time, and they went on the trailer with no problems. I guess they just needed a practice run.

Anyway, Watson left, and that evening, the girls and I sat on the front porch and watched a beautiful sunset. We talked and laughed and discussed what makes working with someone fun, what kind of character it takes, and how giving grace when someone makes a mistake is right, since it’s what you want others to do to you (even if they don’t).

I have always loved picking out lessons from real life and “teaching” them to my kids as I make a statement that maybe is a little “off” according to what the world believes, but it makes them think more deeply and consider what the Bible says.

We actually talked a little about Nana as Julia mentioned that she was surprised that none of us were more upset at her death considering how close we all were to her.

We talked about how having God as Someone to run to only works if you actually have a relationship with Him to begin with, since a person never wants to run to a stranger for comfort.

How daily devotions and time with the Lord pay off when “something big” happens.

How Christians can be happy, even joyful, in the midst of sorrow, and how she kind of understood why people might need to turn to alcohol or drugs or other addictions to numb their pain if they couldn’t find succor in the Lord.

Deep thoughts, but fitting in that afterglow of hard physical labor. In the satisfaction of knowing you worked through fear and pain. The comfortable companionship of bonding through danger and working with people who make something that could have been hard fun. Something that could have been an odious job they couldn’t wait to be done with into something you can’t wait to do again.

With smiles and laughter and that happy glow that seems to mark the very best memories.

Somehow, all that seems to cultivate a desire to grow and be better. Not just for yourself, but because you get a glimpse of how good life can be. Of how knowing God and of how following the way He’s shown us makes a big difference in how much we enjoy everyday life, even work.

And as the moon shone down brightly and the stars came out and the night breeze brought all those sweet nature smells, it was simple and good to be filled with that happy, warm feeling when you’ve done a hard, dangerous, and necessary job and done it well with people you love.

As I write, those are the feelings I try to bring out in my books – the hard work, the fun and the feeling of satisfaction and pride in helping to feed a nation as the sun goes down on another good day, and you just feel the goodness of the Lord settle in your soul.

Thanks so much for spending time with me this week.

A Day in the Life of Jessie

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The question I get the most from people is “How do you find the time to write?” I’ve also been asked what my day looks like. So, I thought today would be a good day to post this newsletter essay I wrote a couple years ago:

I thought I would just let you know what I did yesterday. It was kind of typical, in that there is no typical, if that makes sense. Although Julia wasn’t home all day, and that’s not exactly normal. Also, I had off from packing eggs.

Well, I slept in and I didn’t get up until after six. Normally my writing hours are from four to six-thirty or so.

I was not completely dressed when my husband sent me a picture of a newborn calf.

 

Okay, so I can tell from that pic that 1) We had a newborn. 2) It’s a bull. 3) It’s up in the pasture field by the feeder, cold and wet and muddy. What you can’t tell from the pic is that it was drizzling and close to freezing, and the calf was shivering.

So, yeah. I had just put clean clothes on, but I knew they weren’t going to stay that way for long.

First, we went over and bedded the barnyard – the part that’s covered. We had a calf that’s sick and two more cows that we’re expecting to calve any day, so we checked them out while we were there.

Also, my daughter-in-law came over with some scraps for our pig.

Now, I know I’ve not talked much about our hog. He’s a friendly fellow, and he enjoys being petted. However, he also, apparently, enjoys eating fingers, and the first time I petted him, he tried to eat mine. This shouldn’t have surprised me, but the pig snapped its head around and had the ring and middle fingers of my left hand clenched between it’s teeth before I could jerk my hand back. I took umbrage at that breech of trust, balled my right fist up, and hooked a hard right on the left side of his snout, just below his eye.

He let go of my fingers and they healed up just fine. I don’t get angry too often, and I wasn’t angry then, but I do have a tendency to hold grudges, I guess.

So, I don’t pet the pig, although sometimes I do go over to his pen, lean against the gate and say, (in a very cheerful and happy tone – because, hey, I don’t want to be bitter) “What’s shakin’ bacon?”

Also, I don’t usually say this to males, but I will sometimes tell him he has some fine looking hams on the backside, too. Just saying.

I guess the point of that story is Jessie gets a little testy when someone tries to eat her fingers.

Anyway, my husband thought he’d call the cows down from the hill and put a bale of hay in the feeder on the bottom side and that would draw the new mama down.

I knew it wouldn’t, but I saw an opportunity to go eat breakfast, so I encouraged him in his endeavor, and took off for the house. Except…

He reminded me that we had a meeting with our accountant later in the morning and he’d (finally) gotten the numbers I needed to finish the P&L and they were on his desk.

So, breakfast was a nice idea, but it didn’t happen quite yet, because I stopped in the office and started working on accounting.

The nice thing about this was I knew I didn’t have to go to the accountant meeting, since Julia had plans with a friend for the day and I was driving her to town.

btw, Julia can drive, and has her license, but she has depth perception issues as well as some visual processing problems, which made homeschooling an interesting challenge for me and an exercise in frustration and perseverance for her.

She can see now, looking back, that those struggles shaped her for the better, but there were some hard years in there.

Anyway, I answered some emails and messages while I was waiting for our computer, which was running slow (because who goes fast that early in the morning, right?) and I could see the cows walking across the hill and down to the barn, although I didn’t see our new mama.

She never walked by, the computer never ran faster and I decided my time would be better spent foraging for breakfast than answering emails, when my husband texted me and asked if I was ready to go get the calf.

Now, it is probably a thousand (muddy, and in some places, deep muddy) yards from where the calf and cow were to our barn. It’s mostly down hill, but when it’s muddy, sometimes that’s a bad thing. And often times newborn calves don’t walk well and need carried.

Anyway, I texted him back that I needed to put my boots and coat on, then I’d be out. One minute. What I left out of the text (for brevity’s sake) was that I was also going to eat breakfast first, too. ? (I know, how does he put up with me, right?)

So, anyway, I was almost to the refrigerator when I saw he was already up on the hill. I knew my butt was going to be in trouble if I didn’t get up there with him, so I open the door and yelled up that I’d be there in a minute (hoping that he’d not notice that I’d already told him one minute ten minutes ago). Somehow that morphed into an argument about how we were going to get the calf down (we were only shouting because we were so far apart).

He wanted to take it down through the pasture (and mud) and I wanted to take it around out of the pasture where there was no mud because I just KNEW we were going to end up carrying it, and where my husband is like a mountain goat and also NEVER gets dirty, I’m basically a klutz and figured I was going to end up on my butt in the mud.

I lost the argument, but I did decide to grab my phone (because I wanted to have great baby calf pics to show you all). Normally I do not take my phone with me to the barn. I think all of us have dropped our phones in the water trough at least once, and some of us (the slow learners, I guess) have done it multiple times.

Anyway, I shoved my phone in my back pocket, put the coat and boots on (again) and hopped over the fence. (Okay, I climbed over the fence, but hopped sounded so much better. : )

This was one of the many times I was wrong because the calf actually did walk the whole way to the barn by itself and I didn’t fall once. It took a while though, because newborns don’t walk fast and the mama didn’t want to go where we wanted her. Finally, after zigzagging around and trudging through the mud, we got them down, under roof and had the gate shut. Perfect time to take a cute calf pic. So, I reach in my back pocket for my phone…but it was gone.

Gotta laugh, right?

So, by this time, the hubs is late for his accounting appointment, I’m not going to have Julia’s friend picked up on time, one of our boys is waiting for us because there was a problem at the (boy’s) chicken barn and our ex-bad boy truck driver is standing in the barnyard with a delivery (and he’s just cooing for all he’s worth over the calf – he’s never seen anything like it)

So, my youngest daughter goes looking for my phone (still laughing over that; this is why there are NO CUTE CALF PICTURES), I throw the numbers in the computer, but can’t get it to print, so I use the hub’s phone to take a pic of the screen and print THAT, then run my daughter to town (never did get breakfast), come home, cook lunch (hot sausage sandwiches with peppers and onions) while I have my laptop on the counter trying to finish the stuff I had to do for the church, and also my phone (which my daughter found) because I have emails and messages to answer still, and I’m almost finished when my husband texts me:  You coming?

Me:  Yes

I have no idea where he’s going.

Okay, so I might take some flack for this, but I try to make my default answer to my husband a “yes.”

Anyway, I finished up the church stuff, delay the emails, got my daughter to finish lunch, and found out that we had a driver who was sick, so I was riding with my hubs to get feed. (On that trip I also ended up looking up some paperwork, emailing it, figuring out what to do about the issues brought up at the accounting meeting and grabbing some 1099s and basically doing my mobile secretary job.) I got home just in time to switch the laundry, put a basket away, clean the kitchen, empty the trash, and take my youngest daughter to pick up a friend who is staying here through Monday. I got home and worked on this newsletter for a half an hour until it was time to go pick up Julia. When we got back, she had a package to open, which kind of took a while, then the hubs wanted me to go over and check the calf and the other cows that are going to freshen, and we also had a goat that was kidding. We didn’t get there in time, and the second baby came out with the placenta wrapped around its head and suffocated. ? My daughter and her friend decided they were going to sleep in the goat barn, so I helped a little with that and told them to please come down if they felt like they were going to freeze to death. (Since I didn’t want to have any awkward conversations with her parents about bodies and funerals, not to mention, they probably wouldn’t let her stay over again.) At this point it’s after ten. I never did get breakfast, and I think I’m just going to put that on my list of things to do tomorrow. : )

I think, when I started this, I was answering the question, when do you find time to write…I don’t know, honestly. Hopefully God doesn’t let me sleep in tomorrow.

 

Thanks so much for spending time with me today!

A Journey and Lessons Learned

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Yesterday, I returned from a journey to Iowa. I didn’t visit where I grew up, but rather the northeastern Iowa farm where my mom was born and the small northeastern town nearby. I spent a large part of my childhood there and created so many memories. It’s also where my remaining family lives. I was there to bury my parents’ ashes in the cemetery with six generations of my mother’s family resides.

My grandparents’ farm in Decorah, Iowa

The journey wasn’t easy, and thank you to fellow filly Cathy McDavid, who said traveling the end of life journey with our parents could either be a blessing or a difficulty. She helped me realize I controlled which of these this trip would be. I left Texas for Iowa determined that my trip would be a blessing. And it was. In more ways than I could’ve imagined.

 

 

Decorah farm

 

My dear Uncle Wayne, the youngest of my mother’s siblings, who sat me on a neighbor’s horse and walked me around the pasture, said something profound that has also changed my life’s perspective. He told me he’d heard a quote about how we put a person’s birth and death date on their tombstone separated with a dash. The quote talked about that the dash mattered most because it represented what came between our birth and death. He then said we need to make the most of the dash in our lives.

After a quick search, I discovered came from a poem by Linda Ellis.

?I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on the tombstone.
from the beginning…to the end.

He noted that first came the date of birth
and spoke the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
that they spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved them
know what that little line is worth.”
? Linda Ellis, Live Your Dash: Make Every Moment Matter

“Your life is made of two dates and a dash. Make the most of the dash.”
? Linda Ellis

We all need to make the most of the dash in our life.

Dash buttonTo me that says, be kind where I can, even if it’s something simple like holding the door for someone, flashing a smile, or saying hello. Even in places where they don’t do that like my Aunt Margaret, Wayne’s wife, did. (She told me a story about doing so in a not so great NYC neighborhood.) I hope I can have her courage in those moments.

I want to make the most of the dash by standing up for those who need another voice to argue against injustice and bullying. I hope to be honest, but not brutal or cruel. I want to forgive because as my Uncle Wayne said with his take on the Nelson Mandela quote, “Not forgiving is like taking poison and expecting someone else to die.” Yup. Holding a grudge and refusing to forgive hurts the one carrying the anger.

Be kind

I want to make the most of the dash, by being there for my children when they need me or me to do something fun. It doesn’t matter that they’re grown. I also need to maintain the connection with my remaining family in Iowa. They will help me make the most of the dash because they fill a hole in my heart and soul I didn’t know I had in my heart. Those aunts, one uncle, and cousins along with my relatives buried in that small Burr Oak, Iowa cemetery, played a huge role in who I am today, and I am incredibly grateful.

I hope my tombstone says that I made the most of the dash or at least she tried to.

 

Giveaway:  To be entered in today’s random giveaway for the Spooky Season T-shirt and signed copy of Family Ties, leave a comment on what you think people can do to make the most of the “dash” in their lives.

 

Is your family weird?

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We did get some rain after a long summer of none, so things are greening up. It also made things a little slick, and I couldn’t get the hay truck out of the bottom pasture after I took bales down to the cows, so I left it there.

When Watson called to see how his cows were doing, I mentioned the bald tires (because it’s the truck, not me, right? LOL) and the rain and the fact that it might be still sitting in the pasture. (I walked home, just for the record, too.)

He said, “Just get in the truck, back it up along the creek, put it in fourth, and floorboard it. If you get a good enough run, it’ll go up the hill, no matter how muddy it is. Don’t cut the corner so fast you roll the truck over.”

I heard, “Climb the Empire State Building and jump off it.”

So, anyway, I decided if he wanted his (dumb, old) truck out of there, I would do it my way. (I actually had to get it out because the cows were getting hungry, and 16 is in that herd, and if they get out, she’s coming for me.)

Okay, I decided I really didn’t want to die, and I kinda feel like I’m going to if that old truck goes any faster than about 5 mph (I’ll go 10 if it’s empty and going uphill) just because the brakes aren’t the best and the steering is hard, and I’m always watching for snakes to crawl out of holes (and there are a lot of holes, just saying). (Have I mentioned the copperheads around here?)

I don’t want to be going so fast I can’t jump out.

Anyway, I have my youngest daughter get behind me and push me out with the tractor.

Julia was supposed to be standing by with her usual job, but she was busy taking pics, I guess.

It was okay, though, because it went off without a hitch. Pie did a great job, and no one died. (That reminds me. We had a cousin staying here for a while. She and Pie are the same age and have been best friends since birth. I think she had a really good time. At least she called her mom to ask to have her stay extended three different times. For some reason, she didn’t mind us putting her to work, the poison oak that swelled her eye shut didn’t seem to bother her—I let them eat ice cream and watch TV, which might have had something to do with it—and the last night she was here, they were swimming in the water trough until almost eleven. When she left, she gave Pie a hug and said, “I’ll miss you. Please don’t die while I’m gone.” IDK if that’s a normal farewell or if my family is just weird. I’m leaning toward the second.)

Actually, I know we’re weird! What about you? What makes your family weird? : )

Auggie

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This spring, Jules and I were checking on the cows, and we came at just the right time to see Auggie be born.

He came out the way he was supposed to—with nose lying on front feet first—but his mom was standing up. Now, this isn’t too uncommon, but I’ve not seen it much, honestly. Usually, the cow lies down and has her baby that way.

Still, Julia and I stood back and watched this little guy slip into the world and land with a thump on his nose.

We weren’t too far away, and we could tell he was okay—he was moving and breathing—but I was alarmed when I saw his face. My first thought was that he’d broken his jaw when he landed on his head.

After getting a little closer and examining him (not touching him, because, you know, mama was kind of protective), I realized that Auggie had a cleft palate.

Maybe you’ve seen or heard of this in children before, as I have, but I’ve never seen it in a calf. He has the top of his nose, but the bottom of his nostrils are missing. His mouth just closes on his nose, which is kind of flat. There’s really nothing to hold his tongue in.

I never said anything to anyone online, because I honestly wasn’t sure if he’d live. I didn’t think he’d be able to suck. Often with a severe cleft palate, there’s a hole in the roof of the mouth and normal breathing and swallowing is hard if not impossible.

Auggie’s cleft palate is pretty severe.

I hate it when I tell a story about one of our animals and they end up not making it. So, I waited.

I have to hand it to Auggie’s mom. She’s a sweetheart, and she stood patiently while Auggie nosed around, fumbling and clumsy, as he tried to learn to eat.

I never talked about the calf I killed (on accident), and I guess I don’t want to do that now, but Auggie was born this spring about that time. Let’s just say it hadn’t been a great week for me. Seeing Auggie’s mom patiently stand still while Auggie taught himself to eat was such a joy.

And he did it. He ate.

We were told he might be able to suck, but he probably wouldn’t be able to chew grain or grass.

Well, I can report to you today that he’s been eating grass for several months (and we don’t feed grain), and he’s not only surviving but thriving.

He’s one of our favs. : )

The girls had just watched the movie Wonder, and that’s where he got his name.

Augge is special to us, partly because we were there from the beginning. My absolute favorite part of farming is watching animals be born.

 

Have you ever seen an animal be born?