The Souvenir

After we wed nine years ago, many evenings were spent in our small home on the edge of town trying to stuff all his Kansas/Angus/ranch memorabilia into an Indiana/Shorthorn/farm house I’d lived in alone for five years. Our styles were so similar: rich in history and stories of days and people gone by. What I didn’t consider was what it might be like to marry a fellow collector.

Too late now.  

Nearly a decade later and we’re still passionate about what does and does not belong around our farm. Does it have a story? Does it belong in the family? Was it once living? All questions we ask ourselves as we continue to make this homestead our own.

So you can imagine my surprise when I came home from work to find a five foot headstone erected in our front yard a couple weeks ago. 

While most families return home from vacations with sunburns, t-shirts and keychains, we came home from our trip to Kansas City with a headstone that boldly displays someone else’s initials.

It was an honor for husband Cody to be asked to judge the Bred & Owned (bred and raised on your farm, home grown, not purchased from anyone else) show at the National Junior Angus Show in Kansas City. To add extra sweetness, he was able to ask his father to be his associate judge.

The entry way to the prestigious show ring was flanked with two tall flint rock monuments commemorating the event. Throughout the few days we were at the show while Cody judged, I did notice him study the monuments. He touched them. Tried to rock them. Mentally judged their weight. Studied how they were free-standing. Never in my right mind did I think we’d haul one home.

Finally, it was time to pack the four of us back into the truck and head east to Wayne County. Cody walked over while I was saying goodbye to Missouri friends, “Did you see those stones by the ring?”

“How could I miss them? It’s like the Kansas Stonehenge.” He didn’t appreciate my joke.

“Well, they put them up on the silent auction for folks to bid on throughout the week…” he continued like a kid about to explain how he ended up in the Principal’s office.

“You didn’t. Please. Please tell me you did not bid on those,” I pleaded.

“Well just once or so and turns out no one else wanted them!” by his excitement I knew how this story was going to end. “I only bought one. The other will go the to Angus Hall of Fame.”

“Of course no one wanted them! They look like headstones!” I was not believing my ears.

Cody was so excited about this souvenir to commemorate the opportunity to judge the bred & owned cattle with his dad, that he didn’t even sense my frustration. “Did you bring the joint check book?” he asked with a pep in his step, as though he’d won the grandest prize of all.

“No way, pal, this is coming from your personal savings. Buying your headstone was not in the budget this year with the home renovation. Wait. Doesn’t it have words on it?”

“Letters. NJAS ’22. National Junior Angus Show 2022. It’s a souvenir. The year I judged with Dad,” he remarked.

Ugh. Now he was tugging at my heartstrings. “I thought they gave you coolers as keepsakes. Couldn’t we have stuck with the coolers?” I asked as he walked in the opposite direction.

One pallet, two skid steers, three state lines and four weeks later the rock (headstone) landed outside beautiful Economy, Indiana. He organized a team to help him place it on our farm before I got home. Not his first rodeo.

For four weeks now I’ve mowed around the headstone and roll my eyes each time. What a souvenir we’ll have to will off to our kids. I just hope Cyrus one day marries someone more patient that his own mother who can appreciate the free standing family headstone.

Last weekend we sat outside admiring the freshly mown yard, an Indiana sunset and American flags blowing in the breeze. Life is good in rural Wayne County.

“I just have one regret,” he said. Of course, my ears perked up.

“I wish I would have bought both of those stones. To balance things out around the milkhouse.”

Friends, if you drive by our farm and see fresh dirt under the NJAS ’22 souvenir, think nothing of it.

 

 

x

The Bike Race

We were vaccinating steers and heifers on Saturday morning when an unfamiliar truck with Ohio plates pulled into the driveway. A couple got out and I suddenly realized it was beef customers from Hamilton, Ohio. They buy freezer beef from us annually and make it a point to drop off the payment in-person. I always enjoy the brief visit; they often have many good questions about farm life. 

They mentioned that there was a bike race going on just down the road and it looked like quite an ordeal. I hadn’t left the farm yet that day, so I didn’t know what they were referencing. I did mention that Highway 35 isn’t necessarily a road bicyclists should be traveling! They went on to say the entire road was blocked off to traffic. 

 

After they left, we finished our vaccination work and turned everything back out to their respective lots. I mentioned the apparent bike race to Cody and we decided to go see what all the commotion is about. We loaded up into the ranger and drove to the intersection of Highway 35 and  State Road 1. 

 

A “bike race” might have been an understatement. 

 

The shoulder was lined with vehicles with out-of-state plates. There were hundreds of bicyclists passing through the intersection as bystanders cheered them on. There were countless American flags and collegiate flags being waved. “The Eye of the Tiger” was blaring from some far-off place and there was a tent with dozens of workers passing out water. 

 

“What in the world is going on here?” I asked as all four of us watched with our mouths open. It was quite the event in northwestern Wayne County!

 

“What are they doing?” Caroline asked. 

 

“I guess they’re racing their bikes,” I responded, though not totally sold on my answer as the bike traffic was moving both directions.

 

“Why dey do dat?” Cyrus asked in his broken speech. 

 

“Because they’re nuts,” I told him. 

 

I got out of the ranger and walked over to a couple sitting in lawn chairs, holding encouragement signsand eating donuts. I asked them about the spectacle. 

 

“Do you know what this is all about?” I asked. “We farm just down the road and we drove down to see what all the excitement was about,” I explained. 

 

The man began, “It’s a triathlon today.”

 

And the lady next to him quickly followed up with more impressive details. “This is the Iron Man!” she exclaimed. “Swim, bike and run all in the same day.”

 

A lady next to her, wearing an Ohio State sweatshirt,finished the details explaining, “They already did a 2.4-mile swim at the reservoir, this is the 112-mile bicycle ride, and they finish with a 26.22-mile run.”

 

I almost passed out this trying to process this information. 

 

I thought we were doing pretty good, having already had breakfast, chored and processed 25 head of cattle in a morning. These hundreds of strangers were pushing their body to the max in the name of personal health and apparent enjoyment of pain. 

 

We sat and watched the event for a long time, in awe of the bikes, attire and cheering clubs. 

 

“I think if I was going to swim across a lake and then ride my bike for a hundred miles, the last thing I’d want to see is my family eating a box of donuts in a lawn chair with my face on their sweatshirt,” Cody said, still in disbelief of what we were witnessing. 

 

There was not a single person that appeared to be tired. If I was in the race I’d have to pull over and pretend to check the air pressure in my bike tires every five miles just so I could catch my breath. 

 

And don’t even ask me to swim in a reservoir. I get nervous in the bathtub. 

 

The sun went behind clouds, and it began to get dark. Caroline became instantly worried about the bikers who were about to get rained on. 

 

“Can you even think about riding a bike in the rain?” she asked. 

 

“Sis, I think the rain might feel good on them. They’ve got to be hot doing all of this exercise,” I tried to calm her concern. 

 

“Check the radar,” Cody said as we drove up the hill, heading back home.

 

“Are you worried about the bikers, too, Daddy?” I asked. 

 

“I was more worried about if you and I can still grill out tonight.”

 

Folks, those are words of affirmation. 

Winter with Kids on the Farm

“I love cold weather. I love cold weather. I love cold weather,” I repeat to myself while skating across a frozen barn lot with two buckets of feed. 

 

And I do love the cold. The way it makes apparent the simple acting of exhaling so curious that kids ask questions. Or the way we have to bed down huts in the middle of the pasture to provide some protection for new calves. Or the way it covers the land, gates, and bins with frost and makes everything glow in the moonlight. I do love cold weather.

 

But cold weather on a farm with two children may not warrant the “L” word. 

 

My husband travels often for work and January through April is his busiest time to hop on a plane and travel to North America’s ranches. We get through it with a lot of Snapchats of newborn calves “Look who arrived early!!!”, thorough feed instructions, and patient children not afraid of Vaseline.

Bedtime Skincare Routine

With temperatures in the twenties and dropping this week, bundling the kids up to go feed is a chore in itself. We start with a thick and even layer of Vaseline to the cheeks. I get down on two knees in front of them and paint their faces like we’re going into war. And in some ways, we are. 

Chore War Paint

 

“You are strong. We can do this. We’ll be back in the house in an hour,” I tell them over and over, mostly for my own motivation. 

 

Then we layer. 

 

Hooded sweatshirts for the base layer, coveralls so stiff they can barely walk in them, wild rags (silk scarves) to protect their necks and make them feel like real cowboys, Carhartt coats with pockets where they can hide snow, feathers and rocks, toboggans that fall over their eyes, and gloves that will be removed two minutes after stepping outside. By the time I get them both dressed and out the door we’re all three sweating and ready for the chill.

Because they’re 2 and 4 and in the thick of the independence stage (when does this end? And don’t tell me 18), neither allow me to help them through the snow or across the solid sheet of ice that is our barn lot. I walk to the barn and have 10 buckets of feed filled by the time they make it across the lot. 

 

We’ve been outside for seven minutes and Cyrus’ hands are already cold because he has removed his gloves to put tiny snowballs in his pockets and Caroline is licking snow and ice off the side of our farm truck. I warn about germs, but no one takes me seriously because I’m holding a pitchfork with 10 lbs. of afterbirth on it. 

 

We move on and feed the main lot of cows with new calves, then the feeder steers we feed out for freezer beef, then two separate pens of weaned heifers, then the cows who are in a lot close to the barn because I pen them up nightly so they don’t calve out in the pasture. Then we go out and check all the calf huts, counting calves and fluffing straw so the calves are more inclined to sleep there, safe and warm, rather than the middle of a dark pasture where predators and wind may get them.

 

Questions are plenty, and I answer the best I can. Right about the time I was trying to formulate an answer to, “Do you think coyotes come in the middle of the night because they want to drink the mommy cow’s milk when she’s sleeping?” Cyrus began whimpering that his hands were cold. When this banter begins, I know I have approximately four minutes until a high-speed-come-apart takes place. So, I hustle to wrap things up, bed down the barn, feed the barn cats (don’t ask), drain the hoses, throw down hay, and close all the gates for the night. 

 

By this time there are warm tears coming from both sets of eyes, gloves are lost, hands are red, and a change of heart has taken place: both kids are now desperate to be carried to the house. I convince Caroline to walk and hold my hand while I carry Cyrus across the ice and up the hill to the house. She’s having a hard time holding my hand because she is using her wild rag as a Kleenex. Cyrus is so over the chore experience that he’s thrown himself onto the hardened snow, facedown, screaming. I swoop him up as quickly as possible so no one driving by questions my parenting, grab Caroline’s hand and we briskly walk to the house. 

 

I get everyone unbundled, hats and gloves on the register so the snow melts off, frigid hands washed in luke-warm water and tears and Vaseline wiped off cold red cheeks. It was in this moment of thinking, “We got another evening’s work done and we all survived,” that I hear from the living room:

 

“Mommy. Can we have popsicles for being so good?”

 

“Yes, Mommy!” Cyrus chimed in, hanging on my leg with thawing red hands. “I want blue.”

 

 I didn't realize one could recover from hypothermia so quickly. 

Auction Itch

You can travel all over the United States this season and find a cattle auction going on or approaching. Many beef cows, heifers, and bulls are sold this time of year, whether in the commercial, purebred or show cattle industry. 

Two weeks ago, our family of four traveled to the Kansas flinthills for our family’s production sale, then we went to the beautiful sandhills of Nebraska to another sale where we had beef embryos selling. Over five days, we logged 2,227 miles. That’s a lot of time in a car seat, just ask the kids. 

I love attending these livestock auctions. The atmosphere of the sale, the auctioneer’s rhythmic chant, and “HA! HA!” of the ring men who call the bids – it is truly an exciting event. It is amazing what some stock will bring, what genetics are sold for and how people select what they’d like to take back home to their operations. 

But I’ll tell you, there is something about a live auction that makes me itch. Seriously. 

When at a live auction, you should sit very still so the ring man or auctioneer doesn’t think you’re bidding on the lot. 
Do not nod. 
Do not wink. 
Do not move your arms. 

Not me. 

Put me at an auction and I itch, twitch, and simply do not have the ability to sit still. At the sale in Nebraska, I got something in my eye during the heat of the sale, and could not quit raising my arms to get whatever it was, out. Naturally, I kept blinking, winking moving my head back and forth to find comfort. My husband wasn’t terribly impressed that I almost bought a Hereford bull for more money than we have in our farm bank account. After a bit of confusion, I excused myself to the food line for the remainder of the event. 

A month ago, we went to an estate auction and I watched as they sold the 1989 Crown Victoria. It was at that moment that I saw an old neighbor and couldn’t help but wave. This was a bad, bad idea. Next thing I know, I’m “in” at $2,500 and the auctioneer asks if I want to take the bid to $3,000. I nodded “no” then again excused myself to the dessert line. 

Do you notice a trend?

On Friday night we went to an Angus sale outside West Lafayette. There I was, minding my own business and visiting with a cattle friend when I hear the auctioneer say in the middle of his chant, “Lindsay! You’re OUT!” I looked up to the auction block, and he was, in fact, looking straight at me. I wanted to respond with, “Frankly, I had no idea I was even in,” but I only nodded “no” and walked outside to get some fresh air. I think I use my hands too much when I talk. 

My husband attends these cattle sales for a living, in search of the next great beef bull. He’s taken me to three live auctions over the last two weeks, and I am fairly certain he’ll never again invite me to job shadow him. I’m just a risk that he (we) can’t afford. 

But if you do drive by our farm and see a Hereford bull, 1989 Crown Victoria or something else that just doesn’t fit in, please understand that it is probably a (/an expensive) result of me getting an untimely itch at an auction. 

Mike the Mule

In the closing minutes of a recent meeting, a client of Sankey Creative remarked, “I enjoy reading your blog. I don’t know how you keep finding things to write about.” I told the gentleman that finding the uninterrupted time to sit down and write has always been the challenge, rather than finding things to write about. Somehow, stories or topics just always seem to...come out of nowhere. 

That was last Thursday. 

On Friday afternoon, the kids and I returned home from Ohio with a load of feed. Cody met us at the truck and said, “You’re not going to believe this. The strangest thing. I look out to the pasture and all the cows are stirred up, something really has their attention. And across the pasture goes a white horse!”

“What?!” I asked him. “Where did it come from? Where did it go?” Cody didn’t have solid answers for either of those questions. The white horse seemed to appear from nowhere, then disappear again. 

An hour later all four of us were working outside when Cody yelled, “Lindsay! Look at the woods! There it is!” And sure enough (Cody hadn’t been drinking in the middle of the afternoon), out of the woods emerged a large white horse. 

This is not the horse that emerged from our woods.
This is a result from Googling, "White horse woods"

The cows were stirred yet again, so we needed to take action by calling neighbors. The first neighbor just laughed and said it wasn’t theirs. The second neighbor just laughed and said yes, in fact, he was missing Mike the Mule. In our defense, we hadn’t been close enough to the majestic animal to determine it was actually a mule, not a horse. 

In the same minute that we determined where he belonged, Mike the Mule took off running north, then he cut across our yard. Then he did something really stupid: He stepped onto Highway 35. 

Here is probably where I should describe where we live. We live just west of the crest of a hill on a terribly busy highway. You can look west out of our drive and see ½ a mile, but looking east only grants you about 75 yards. That isn’t a long distance when trying to pull out onto a road where people may be going 60+ mph. Much to our dismay, we don’t have a dog because of this location. I’ve scraped enough barn cats off the highway with a scoop shovel to know that I don’t have the intestinal fortitude to own a family dog. 

So, when Mike the Mule stepped onto Highway 35, my heart sank for multiple reasons. Cyrus was on my hip and Caroline was by my side and they both thought it was pretty awesome that a magical white horse appeared out of nowhere and wanted to play with their cows. I had a bad feeling they were about to see something no child should. Then, my animal adoring husband decides to step out on to 35 and try to stop traffic at the crest of the hill so Mike the Mule doesn’t turn into Rex the Roadkill right in front of our farm. 

You have to understand Cody and horses. Having grown up on a Kansas ranch, horses are quite special to him. His parents still have his childhood horse, Socks, on the ranch and Caroline visits Socks and friends when we travel west. When Cody saw a horse(/mule) in danger, he stopped at nothing to try to get it out of harm’s way. 

So there I was. Baby on the hip, toddler on hanging on to my leg crying for her daddy, a white mule trotting a straight line down the double yellow of 35 and low and behold, a Red Gold semi barreling up from the other direction. 

“This is not going to end well,” I told the kids. “We’re going to the house.” 

Of course, I couldn’t, because while Mike did seem special, I also cared about the well-being of Cody, who had suddenly turned into Walker Texas Ranger right in front of our very eyes. He was going to save the world. And by the world, I mean Mike the Mule. 

Of course, my mind kept clicking back to how I was going to call my in-laws in Kansas and explain to them that Cody got into a tangle with a Tahoe because he was trying to save a random mule from getting clipped in front of Caroline’s concerned, and always curious, eyes. 

Quite luckily for all parties involved, I never had to make that phone call. 

A black suburban, silver Fusion and beige Buick all barreled over the crest of the hill but avoided Mike and Cody. The Red Gold truck slowed his ascent up the hill and pulled over the shoulder with his flashers on. Mike the Mule made a very smart decision and took a left through our double red gates and went back onto our property. Cody closed and latched the gate behind him.

Mike’s owner came a short time later with a halter and lead rope. Cody got Mike haltered and lead him back up our ditch to a pen where he would be safe until the owner returned with a stock trailer. 

While filling milk cups for bed, Caroline looked out our south window which overlooks the pens. “Look! Daddy got me a white horse!” she yelled out. I broke her heart by reminding her that was Mike the Mule and he’d (hopefully) be gone before she woke up the next morning. And he was. 

Every day since, we’ve traveled St. Road 1 and seen Mike the Mule out grazing where he is supposed to be. Caroline looks for him each time and she’s grown quite fond of the rogue rascal. I, too, look for Mike at every opportunity. Not because I necessarily like him, but because I want to ensure he stays where he belongs and doesn’t become the reason for a long-distance phone call back to Kansas. 

Farm Auction

On Saturday the kids and I went to a farm auction. It was just south of where I laid my head for 18 years, at a farm that I closely associate with my childhood, as I spent many days there playing with the granddaughter of the occupants. 

I paused while pushing the double stroller up the winding driveway, and stood in awe of the home itself. The place was a mansion when I was eight years old, and in my mid-thirties it was still as big and beautiful. I wondered if the main stairwell banister was still sturdy as a rock and polished perfectly. I wondered if the light switches upstairs were still the push-button kind. It was my dream home growing up, and that has never changed. 

I reached the auction site and navigated through the barn lot, looking at the many (I mean, tons) of things laid out for the public to view then eventually bid on. Vases, sewing machines, Pyrex bowls, quilts, washing machines, wagons, cars, lamps, cowboy boots and hats, framed art, mixed tapes, tools…the variety of things for sale on Saturday was endless. I was drawn to the Angus memorabilia. 

Dick and Ruthanna Kinsinger were avid Angus breeders and Dick’s love for the breed dated back to 1941 when he bought his first heifer. Ruthanna, if you can believe it, was a Shorthorn gal from Union County. At the auction was a table of trophies, plaques and ribbons, all relics of the success the Kinsinger family had in the 1940’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. A sadness came over me to see them all for sale. I can only imagine the years of blood, sweat and tears that went into winning those grand prizes. I stood in front of the table considered the pride behind each one and the animals that rested in the barn along Washington Road. And on this day, generations later, the awards would go home with the highest bidder. It was at that moment that I became certain that I don’t have the emotional stability to attend farm auctions.

Farm auctions are interesting things. A person passes away all of their things are moved to the yard and then sorted through by strangers and sent to new homes. Things that once filled a single-family home are dispersed throughout the land, to unrecognizable people and places. I truly understand that the family can't keep everything; and I think that is what makes it so tough. What do you choose to pass on to someone else? There were a few times that during the auction I stood by members of the Kinsinger family. I heard phrases such as, “We played with that when I was a child” or “Do you remember that from Christmas?”

Those are emotional triggers for a walking time capsule such as myself. I heard the detail about Christmas and I almost bought everything on the table simply because I think I would have really loved Christmas in 1965. I saw a lift chair for sale and considered buying it, not because I needed it or had space for it, but because I knew that is where Dick loved to watch Purdue basketball…I went to Purdue for four years…and went to one basketball game during that time…I would only be pure destiny that I buy the lift chair. 

I have got to quit going to farm auctions. 

Old cattle clippers, show boxes, show halters, boots. There were so many things at the farm auction that I would love to own, simply because I admire so the much people that once wore, used or held them. But I kept my checkbook close and memories of Dick and Ruthanna closer. I’m so fortunate to have grown up with such neighbors. Let me put it this way: In the 1980’s they gave out Halloween treat bags with our names on them. Before Pinterest. That’s all I need to say. 

I left the farm auction with an antique metal Tonka Truck livestock hauler that I’ll clean up and give to Cyrus on his first birthday next month. I am also now the proud owner of a hand-tooled wallet with an Angus bull painted on it. I’m thankful to have a bit of the Kinsinger family in our home. I also left with two exhausted, hungry, sweaty kids. Which is very normal anytime past 10:00 AM, daily.

I didn’t buy a single Angus trophy, ribbon or plaque, and I’m kicking myself now. Cody asked me where we would have put them, and I didn’t have an answer. It would have been odd to display the prizes from someone else’s work. We aren’t the kind of people who believe in participation trophies. But dang, I love a blue ribbon (say’s the gal who never got many growing up). 

Dick and Ruthanna Kinsinger were incredible neighbors during my formative years. Ruthanna could cook and sew far beyond anyone I knew, and Dick mowed the yard and barn lot three times a week, which kept my competitive mother busy. 

And in the last six months, 

Dick taught me a lesson far beyond farm auctions. 

But that is a story for another week.    

The Tradition

The house was locked up tighter than Ft. Knox and lights out. 

Caroline was sound asleep in her crib and her chest was moving up and down (at what age do parents stop checking this?). 

Prayers were said, and I was so, so close to sleep. 

That's when I heard my cell phone buzz on the nightstand. 

A text from Cody, two time zones west: "You may need to keep an eye on 301. I think she's starting.”

Keep an eye on 301? My eyes were about to shut for five straight hours, I thought to myself.

Work Hard, Rest Hard

And so, the last three months have been as such. It has only been at night, when the sun settles somewhere far past Indiana, and it is dark and cold that the cattle calm enough to focus on what they’re all supposed to be doing this time of year: Calving. 

The good news is that we have barn cameras that allow us to watch what’s going on outdoors without getting bundled up. 

The bad news is that we have barn cameras that allow us to watch what’s going on outdoors twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week (if you have the stamina). 

The worst news is Cody can access those cameras from his phone, no matter where his travels take him. 

My phone is my alarm clock, and my alarms are set as follows when I think something shows signs of calving overnight: 

The wake schedule is basically 
like having a new baby in the house.
And I wonder why my under-eye 
cream doesn't seem to be working. 

I haven't always answered the call of duty, though. On one particular night in late February I slept through three texts and four phone calls from Cody. He went on to contact a neighbor for help, while I slept soundly in the house. We have amazing rural neighbors. 

The months of January through March have been comprised of spot lights cutting through pastures, warm gloves and late night texts between husband and wife, and not the exciting kind. These are the kind of texts that silently say, "We're in this together, even when hundreds of miles apart." 

He sends me shots of the beautiful countryside he’s seeing from coast to coast and advice on how to handle difficult situations at home, while I send him photos of the newest calves to hit the ground and video of our sweet Caroline. Teamwork makes the dream work, right?

Each morning and evening (and sometimes overnight) I come in the house and unbundle. Usually exhausted, sometimes frustrated, but never questioning the work. I was raised this way and Cody was, too. Caroline – the greatest and slowest farm hand I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with – already has the farm life engrained in her. I have to bribe her out of the barn with goldfish crackers.

Sometimes she watches me struggle to move a rogue calf or pen a pair and seems to say,
"Dad would have had this done thirty minutes ago."

In our dining room hangs a poem given to us on our wedding day. The gifters - my in-laws - no doubt knew the bride and groom well, and all that they (we) were about to embark upon.

The Tradition

Some folks just don’t get it.

They think owning cattle makes no sense.

It takes too much time, too much equipment,

not to mention the expense.

But the fondest memories of my life

– they might think sound funny –

were made possible by Mom and Dad,

‘cause they spent the time and spent the money.

You see, the most important lessons

helping values grow so strong,

come from loving cattle

and passing that tradition on.

In less than a month the grass will be green, temperatures will be warming, and we’ll be able to look across our pastures and see a flurry of black calves (plus two red ones) running with their tails up, exploring the bounds of the farm. 

Cody’s travel will slow and he’ll be home regularly, which means I’ll probably need to start cooking full meals again. 

The sleepless nights will be a tired memory that paid off with a healthy calf crop. 

And we’ll pass The Tradition on.

Until then, 

with every wake up call or 

dark trek across the barn lot, 

I'll Just. Keep. Swimming.