Stopping to Take it All In

This Christmas I found myself being more reflective than I have been in the past.  I think so often, especially on livestock farms, we get so caught up in the tasks of farming and getting stuff done just to spend a little time with family during the holidays that we neglect to stop and take it all in.   I found myself noticing my nieces’ smiles, laughing with my goddaughter as she played hide and seek with Nana, and smiling when I watched my 93 year old great grandfather just watch his family around him.  I also took some time in the barn to take it all in.  I was asked by my brother to milk cows and do chores so that he could visit his in laws for Christmas.  Since I have a more flexible schedule I decided to help him out.  For Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I was at my family’s farm working with my parents and sisters.  This year, more than ever before I needed to stop and take it in.  This is the last Christmas Eve and Christmas morning that I will ever milk in my great grandfather’s original barn, as in the coming months my family’s herd will be moving into a new parlor that my brother is building.  I am overjoyed at the farm’s progress but I can’t help my smile and tear up a little bit thinking about the memories in that old barn.

My favorite mornings and nights to milk are during Christmas.  I love the calm in the barn, the calm in the moonlight and star light at winter time, the calm in the morning at sunrise just as the sun shine hits the frozen Earth.  I love the gentleness of the cows as they pass into the barn, a soft nudge while I lock them into their milking stalls, and a wet kiss with their scratchy tongues as I pet their heads.  I love the smell of cows, their feed, the fresh bedding, and I even think freshly fallen Christmas snow smells.  I will always remember the years we put Christmas lights on the pasture fences, the silo pipes and the milk room, and how they made the whole farm glow in the snow.   I love the memories of working as a family to get chores done in time to make it to Grandpa’s house and the stories told by my father and mother of Christmas’s past.  I can’t help but feel connected to my past when I’m in that old barn.  I bet those walls have some amazing stories from Christmas when my dad was a little boy, or even when my grandfather was a boy!  I bet there was lots of laughter, as my dad’s family is filled with pranksters and story tellers.  I can’t even begin to imagine how much wisdom and lessons learned happened inside those walls!  The good news is that my family doesn’t plan on tearing that old barn down.  It will remain a pillar of the farm for the future.  The barn will be used for calving in fresh cows and taking care of newborns, but it won’t be the same life it had as a milking barn with a vacuum pump firing up in the morning and lights on late at night.  So as I reflect on my last Christmas milking in that barn, I can’t help but feel blessed to have an experience that only a few are blessed to have. 

 

Generations that came before Me



Doing calf chores on my family's farm.

I had the pleasure of milking cows with my dad last night.  I took advantage of the situation and asked him about his memories of his dad and grandfather.  He started sharing stories from the past. The stories that are so awesome that you hope you can remember them forever.  While dad was talking about his family, I asked him what his grandfather, my great grandfather, would think about the happenings at the farm (new parlor being constructed).  My dad smiled with a big grin, “I think he would be proud.  I think he would say to me, ‘That’a boy! Way to go!’” I smiled.  I know dad would be right but what I didn’t expect was the reason dad thought his grandfather would be proud.  My dad smiled again, “Your great grandfather would be proud because we are still working and milking cows, in fact almost 130 cows in the original barn that he built when he started farming here years ago.”  It was the idea that we were still using something that my great grandfather built and that through the generations has become a legacy of farming for my niece and nephew.  I couldn’t help but smile and be proud also.  It has been such a blessing to be the collection of the generations that came before me: the ideas and dreams that they had, the hard work that they did, and everything that they strived for.  If it wasn’t for certain decisions at a certain times by these ancestors, I might not be who I am today doing what I am doing.

A path was laid out for me before I was born, this I know and I have complete faith in.  A perfect example of this path is when my father was a graduate from high school.  My grandfather asked him what he wanted to do with this farming career, there was no doubt my dad was coming home to farm it was just a matter of what was he going to raise and grow.  My grandfather had a variety of crops: corn, soybeans, oats, wheat, alfalfa and he even grew peas for the local canning factory.  My grandfather also raised dairy cows, beef steers, hogs and in his younger years, horses.  When my dad was a senior in high school my grandfather was moving towards having only pigs and beef cattle.  He had built a hog barn and he was breeding his Holstein milking cows to Herefords, starting his beef herd and transitioning out of dairy.  When my dad was faced with the question of what he was going to raise, he couldn’t get himself to have a farm without dairy cows.  My dad and my grandfather went on a shopping trip for Holstein heifers which resulted in a replenishing of the dairy herd as well as breeding all of the dairy cows back to Holstein bulls.  If dad had not made the choice to have dairy cows on our farm, my siblings and I would not have had the opportunities that we had growing up.  Sure, we would have had beef cows and pigs, as well as crops, but there is something special about dairy cows, something special in all of our hearts.  Without dairy I would have never had the opportunity to show cows for 4-H or be a finalist for Princess Kay and have my head carved in butter at the Minnesota State Fair.  Perhaps I wouldn’t have gone to college for dairy production, had the opportunity to operate a family farm or work in a career where I am able to help other dairy farmers.  Based on that single choice that my dad made, because he wasn’t ready to have a farm without dairy cows, I am who I am.  I am the collections of all the generations that came before me and that is just cool!  It’s this very reason that I enjoying spending a little time asking my dad these questions and learning more about those who came before me.  I have so much to learn from them.