What Goes Up Must Come Down

Newton’s theory stating, “What goes up must come down” certainly applies to gravity, but I have my own experience with that idea. In our family, when my husband goes up (in a plane) the temperature must come down. Hard.

Inevitably, when Cody is home, it’s 40 degrees and clear. When he leaves for an extended work trip to the wild west, the temperature drops drastically, and everything freezes. His last out-of-state trip did not disprove my theory; it was 37-degrees while he packed his suitcase and a mere 3-degrees four days later.

The good news is I love cold weather; the best news is our kids are very patient. They whine very little when getting bundled up, even with sticky Vaseline on their dry cheeks and hot chocolate in their plastic cups.

We drove north to check a pasture that about 25 cows are wintering in, only to find that the automatic waterer was completely empty and frozen. Nothing was in the tank but a 3-inch layer of ice. The pump house (a cinder block hole dug into the ground) was about 100 yards away, so we walked over to investigate. The heat lamp, which should have kept everything thawed and running so water would continuing filling into the tank as cows drank it down, was burned out. Everything was frozen. Even the hydrant wouldn’t produce water.

I called Cody to explain the situation, he asked many questions to diagnose the problem and find a solution from time zones away. I told the kids it might be a long while before we got into the house that evening and that didn’t bother them a bit. Cyrus was made for mechanics and Caroline just wants to be a helper.

We drove back to the home farm and got a ladder, an extension cord, a heater out of the calf box (a wooden box we would put a newborn calf in if we were experiencing sub-zero temperatures to save it from freezing), a spotlight, a socket set (no idea why, it seemed like a good idea) and two popsicles. You must always feed the help.

“Guys. We have a big job ahead of us and I need you to be helpers,” I told them in the truck.

“What do we get to do?” Caroline asked.

“Hold the spotlight when I crawl down in this hole so I can see what I’m doing. The light burnt out and it’s dark down there.” I left out the part where I’m scared of the dark and super anxious in tight spaces.

“Can we bring popsicles?” Cyrus asked, clearly unconcerned by the situation.

“Sure, Cyrus. But if Mommy gets into trouble I need you to call Daddy.”

“What’s Daddy going to do? He’s not here,” the empathic child reasoned with me.

“You’re right. Don’t touch my phone. Unless I scream. Then call 911.” I was starting to freak myself out. It was getting dark, I was going down in a hole that housed a lot of electrical and I didn’t have much experience in any of this.

My view from the hole

For the next twenty minutes I asked (commanded) Caroline to move the spotlight to the left, Caroline complained that her hand was getting tired, and Cyrus asked repeatedly, “Now can I call 911? Mom? Can I?”

“No! Put my phone down. We’re fine. I’m fine. We don’t have an emergency!” I repeatedly shouted up from the hole.

“But the cows are thirsty,” he responded with a burning desire to get a fire truck and a lot of tax dollars on the scene.

We got the heater set up in the pump house, the burnt-out bulb removed so I could go to the hardware store and buy a replacement, the cords all re-strung so they wouldn’t melt, and I climbed out of the hole without a broken hip or torn ligament. Small victories win battles.

My view from the hole as Caroline continued to help and Cyrus had lost interest

The kids earned two more popsicles upon our return home and crunched them down quickly, despite complaining about frozen hands. The next morning, we drove up to find the heater had worked! Kind of. The hydrant was working, but the electric waterers still were not. We hauled a tank to the pasture and ran a long hose from the hydrant to the tank, so the cows had something to drink.

As I pen, this my husband is packing another suitcase and talking about the approaching temperature drop in Rapid City, South Dakota. He believes that by the time he lands there, that cold snap will arrive in beautiful Economy, Indiana.

That gravity theory just won’t leave us alone.

 

 

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. 

Professional Family Photos

 We had organized family photos taken twice that I can remember while growing up; once at the fire station and once through Olan Mills. My sister had strep throat in one set, and I had pick eye in the other. I think that is why my mother never found it necessary to take annual family photos; they were never worth the money. 

As a parent I’ve made the poor choice to try to get family photos taken each fall. I don’t know why I do this, as I already have 1,027 photos of my children on the iPhone in my pocket. There is just something about getting the family cleaned up, out of barn clothes, hair combed and smiling. But let me tell you: it ain’t easy. 

 

You put a camera in front of Cyrus, 2, and he has as much personality as a celery stalk. He doesn’t smile, he scowls. He doesn’t show you his beautiful blue eyes, he glares. He doesn’t even prefer to stand, he must be held. We’ve always said that Cyrus is an 80-year-old man in a tiny body: he walks like he needs a hip replacement, talks to himself, prefers to eat by himself and generally acts grumpy just so people leave him alone. Add “thinks family photos are ridiculous” to that list. 

On the other end of the spectrum, Caroline, 4, was born for family photos. She encourages props (this year it was a stick horse she insisted on including). She poses. She takes direction quite well. She asks if her hair bow is visible. She tries to act as Cyrus’ smile coach which only irritates him further. 

Cody simply rolls in from the farm two minutes before the photographer is to arrive, washes his hands, combs his hat hair, puts on the clean jeans and shirt I’ve laid out for him and asks, “Why are we doing this, again?”

 

“For Christmas cards,” I remarked, trying to get Sharpie marker off Cyrus’ chin.

 

“My mom used to just sign some and mail them. There was never a photo,” he continued, tucking in his shirt. 

 

I didn’t even acknowledge his passive protest and stories of a simpler life long ago on the Kansas plains. This was no time for happy stories…it was family picture day. I just needed everyone to smile once. Preferably at the same time.

 

My job is to ensure everyone is fully dressed, and the beads of sweat running down my face - earned from squeezing into a pair of jeans I haven’t worn since quarantine started – aren’t visible. That’s tougher than it sounds. 

 

We had our family photos taken in October and have yet to see a single result. 

“What do you think it is taking so long to get our pictures back?” my husband asked last week. "I thought you were sending Christmas cards."

 

“She’s probably Photoshopping a smile onto Cyrus,” I responded without hesitation. He seemed to agree. 

 

Don’t let the perfect photos you see on Facebook or in Christmas cards this year fool you. Just remember: Behind every great family photo you’ll see this holiday season, there was one husband who would rather be doing anything but this, 45 tears cried inside the house because someone was missing Sesame Street for all of this nonsense, 2 pieces of Halloween candy melting in pockets used as bribery and a mother growing frustrated that it is seemingly impossible for everyone in the family to appear happy on the same day. 

 

If you don’t get a Christmas card, please don’t be offended. I’m just trying to protect the family reputation.