Childhood

When I look back over my childhood, some of my fondest memories revolve around livestock.  From absolutely wearing my pony out by jumping on it like I’d seen in the old western movies, to a brief experience in the sheep business, to my father having to bring an orphaned litter of pigs into the house to feed, there was always an animal presence in my life as a kid.

Spring arrives and begins to showcase all of its potential.  The grass is growing, the sun is shining, our herd is expanding and we look forward to the process of executing our grazing season.   Last week, we were blessed with our first set of twin calves to be born on the farm.  This quickly turned from excitement to confusion as the mother rejected one of the twins.  After a little research, this is not uncommon, but certainly presents its own set of challenges.  The most pressing of those challenges is how are we going to keep this little guy fed?  On most days we are at full capacity between all the responsibilities we have and the time constraints we have to work within between family, work, and farm life.  At first, the idea of taking on the added workload of preparing and feeding bottles twice a day along with the cleanup seemed daunting.  As I was bottle feeding the calf and wondering how to most efficiently handle our new challenge, I realized there are some things for which you just have to make time and efficiency is no longer the point.  So, the kids got involved and what might have been just another task becomes an opportunity to create a memory.

I hope that when my children are grown, they will look back as fondly on their childhood as I do on mine. Even if they don’t, I can confidently say I enjoyed watching them in the moment and it will make a good story for the grandchildren one day.