Farm Story Friday

Scaling the Matterhorn during a visit to Disneyland in 2015 (Megan-we see you peeking!) Farms are Better than Disneyland (28 June 2019) My family moved off the farm in February or March 1993, shortly after I turned 17 years old. Farm life was difficult, the number of helping hands was dwindling as my older brothers graduated and left for college, and it was pretty clear that none of them were planning to return to Idaho to join the farming endeavor. My parents had been seriously discussing the option of moving back to Utah for at least 5 years, and they had sold the cows a couple years earlier as a step in that direction.  After the cows were gone, my dad started looking for other options for revenue and we still had plenty of farm work in caring for the crops of alfalfa, wheat, and barley. In early 1993, my dad found a job as a counselor in the Utah Employment Office, working ironically in the same department he had worked in 17 years previously before moving to I...

Thank you for your awesome Happy Fathers Day picture! Since every masterpiece needs a name, I am calling this one “Flying Cow and Baby Cow”. The Cow Who Lived (21 June 2019) While teaching Aeronautics at the Air Force Academy I have told several farm stories to the classes I have taught. In what I am sure is an attempt to delay academic instruction, some students ask quite regularly for farm stories. However, I only have a limited supply of stories, and since I also know that scarcity makes the stories more valuable, I resisted telling them too frequently. Therefore, one of my classes a while back started asking for stories on Fridays, and thereafter, they started calling every Friday, “Farm Story Friday”. And it stuck. Every class thereafter has had someone start asking for farm stories, especially on Fridays (or on Thursdays if we don’t have class on Friday). The title of this story, “The Cow Who Lived” was given by one of my cadets. It all started with a sick cow. My ...

Man versus Beast (14 June 2019) As you can imagine, we definitely didn’t like it when cows swatted us with their manure-soaked tails. A majority of the cows were not malevolent about it and would only occasionally swat, but there were some cows that I am certain knew what they were doing. For one thing, it was almost always the same cows, day after day that did the swatting.  And they got good at it, pretending to have no interest in swatting, then striking at our most vulnerable moments, like at 4:15 and we were still half asleep. The repeat offenders were also often the cows with the dirtiest tails, something I am sure was also on purpose. I even remember watching one of the consistent offenders poop while holding her tail down. It seems to be in a cow’s best self-interest to lift up her tail to poop, and they almost always do, except maybe when they are readying their weapon of choice… We learned quickly that getting angry and hitting the cow would not help. It was more l...

Wake-Up Call (7 June 2019) Some experiences are so vivid that they leave a lasting impression on your mind. Your experience yesterday climbing Eagle’s peak, with Caleb’s fall and all the search and rescue, firemen, and others that came to make sure you were okay and made it down safely may be one of those experiences. Some day you’ll share these experiences with your children, just like I share cow stories with you. Today, since I know you feel deprived never having lived on a dairy farm, I want you to share a story and have you imagine yourself living through a wonderful dairy farm experience:). Imagine your father waking you up around 3:30am. He has already been up long enough to get dressed and ready for the day so he heads directly out to the barn to start the milking process. You really want to snuggle back into your warm bed, and you do, but only for too short a time. You know that you can only risk a few minutes of that warmth before getting ready. There have been tim...