Select Sires

Grandpa Hartley Greenwood with his cows.

Select Sires (18 October 2019)

Today for church we watched the Sunday afternoon session of the October General Conference. The thing about watching conference is that two individuals can listen to the same talk and each receive a unique message suited to their particular needs. As I was thinking about today’s farm story, I realized that this is sometimes true in academic situations as well. To demonstrate this I will share what others have learned from my aerodynamics lessons.

During a lesson on airplane thrust and power, Megan learned how power is related to the thrust and velocity of an aircraft, what thrust curves look like, and a little bit about Junie B. Jones...

Megan’s notes.

During a lesson on oblique shocks, Kelsey learned about a Mr. Squiddles that has to climb a big mountain but then he gets to slide down the back side of the mountain where apparently he meets the love of his life and they have lots of little Squiddles that embark on their own mountain adventures. And thus the Squiddles continue on in “The Circle of Life”.

Kelsey’s notes.

Expanding on my initial whiteboard input, my kids illustrated their collective understanding. They apparently know a lot about Mr. Squiddles’ life story, that a flying cow thinks Aero 442 is fun, that little Squiddles can link together to become centipedes, that Squiddles sometimes hide amongst balloons, and that Squiddles are friendly with Octopus, crabs, and cows.

Whiteboard at work where my kid’s added to my original oblique-shock diagram.

During what I’m sure was a fantastic lesson about the fundamentals of aerodynamics with a short farm story thrown in, my class apparently learned about farm hats because they returned to class a couple weeks later proudly wearing their Select Sires hats. I’m still not sure what they learned about aerodynamics…

My Advanced Aerodynamics class at the U.S. Air Force Academy

Some people wear hats for fashion, but as you can see in the top picture, my grandpa wore his cowboy hats for much more practical reasons. We didn’t have many cowboy hats on the farm, but we had a lot of ball caps with company logos on the front. We used these hats to keep the sun out of our eyes and they sometimes helped protect our head because the cap would move as we got close to hitting our head. Most of these caps were given to us by various companies that were selling farm items. For example, you can see Eldon wearing what appears to be a John Deere hat in the photo.

Eldon Greenwood sporting a John Deere hat.

Select Sires is one of the companies that often provided these hats. As far as I can tell, Select Sires is a very reputable company that has been around since 1965. We often purchased supplies from them and had no issues wearing their hats. But shortly after we moved to Utah, my mom mentioned to my dad that he might want to stop wearing his Select Sires hat around town. Only then did we stop to think that others might question the message the hat was sending to those that were not familiar with Select Sires.

Lyle standing by Keith wearing his Select Sires hat.

“Sire” means father and “Select” means prime, hand-picked, or first-rate. So the company could just as well be called “Prime Fathers”, “First-Rate Fathers” or “Hand-Picked Fathers”. Of these, “Hand-Picked” or “Select” probably make more sense for a company that sells bovine semen, and “Sires” is surely more appropriate than “Fathers” since being a father connotes much more than the contribution of semen. So if they ever ask my opinion, I’ll tell them that I think they chose an appropriate name.

We stored the semen that we purchased from Select Sires in a small tank filled with liquid nitrogen. That kept the semen good until my dad used it to impregnate the cows. I occasionally played with the liquid nitrogen tank when I was in the barn. I thought it was pretty cool to see the fog rise from the open tank. Luckily I knew enough not to stick my finger in and freeze it off.

Picture I took of the Select Sires building in Ohio.

While we typically used the purchased semen, we occasionally kept a bull to impregnate the cows as well. But bulls are significantly more aggressive than cows and I remember being chased by at least one of our bulls. I didn’t really like that. So while others might giggle at the mention of Select Sires, I prefer to remember the important role their product played on our farm. And that’s why I was excited to see an actual Select Sires company building while I was in Ohio for training.

Select Sires logo on the gate in front of their building in Ohio.

The moral of the story is…
 - Hats are useful
 - You don’t get to pick your dad
 - I couldn’t have picked a better dad

I love and miss you all,
Dad

My “First-Rate Father” in his youth.