I just read the article Students Are Udderly Amazed by Visiting Dairy Cow and Calf as presented in our local paper, the Cupertino Courier.
While you may not see the humor in it, I pretty much laughed my way through the entire article. I imagined this same scene playing out in my hometown in Minnesota.
“Okay kids, a cow is going to come visit our school. Let’s all line-up outside because I know how eager you are to see it.” I can already hear the complaints and groans by children who already had to milk their own cows before coming to school.
I also imagined a rural Minnesotan child (or even a North/South Dakotan or Iowan child for that matter), upon seeing the cow, exclaiming, “It’s just like we’re on a farm!” That kid would immediately get punched and shunned because he is obviously “city folk” and “don’t fit in ’round these here parts.” Although, he would have already been pegged a city kid before this incident because of the way he wore his boots on the outside of his pants.
The best part of the article was at the end when the educators thought that, because the kids saw a cow, they might be enouraged to major in agriculture and become world leaders in food production. Who knows, maybe some of them will. But, I just imagine them going to college with all the other kids who grew up on a farm. The city kid would probably be instantly frustrated by the insane amounts of grunt work associated with keeping animals, as well as the bizarre problems that occur on a farm like old Bessie going down to the neighbor’s house again or ‘dem varmits eatin’ all ‘da veggies from ‘da garden. I’m sure they’d learn about it all in a sterile, academic environment. But, quite frankly, I’d rather have the academic child who actually grew up on a farm running the world food production. Not the city kid who saw a cow in elementary school and felt forever inspired.
Why don’t schools consider having, I don’t know, small farms within the district that the kids help run? Or gardens that they manage? I don’t think showing them a cow, watching movies, and reading from textbooks is going to adequately prepare them for any real understanding of agriculture. Then again, I’m a proponent of learning by doing. Oh well, maybe showing them a cow is a good start. It’s just hilarious to a former farm girl like me.
StephLewisBlog
One can’t have a clue about a farm until they, by hand (more precisely by hand with a shovel) fill up a LARGE manure spreader with its thick and soupy contents and then try to take said spreader out into the field only to make it about 40 yards and get the tractor and spreader stuck (it’s quite a mass…or a mess of mass) in a snow drift. Then one spends the rest of the day digging out of that snow drift so you can deposit said load out in the field. Then you come back for many many more loads before the barn is cleaned out. Been there, done that. Hard, boring work. I once got so bored with the process, when the snow was less a problem I spelled my initials in 100 yard high letters out in the field. My dad didn’t find out about it until a local businessman who had a small airplane asked my father if I’d been spreading manure lately. “Yes, he has. Why do you ask?” my dad replied. The rest is history. Some desire to see their name in lights. I settled for more humble notoriety.
Josh’s grandfather spent his high school years having to milk 10 cows by hand before 7 AM in the morning so he could then proceed to go to school. For that accomplishment he got 2ยข per cow…but only for the ones completed by 7 AM. Milking one half a cow would leave most men’s hands aching. Doing ten in a row each day morning and evening will give one forearms Popeye would envy…with or without the spinach.
It’s one thing to pet a nice fresh calf on the nose. It’s quite another to engage in all the absolutely endless work necessary to make a living in agri-business. The profit margins are razor thin. You’d better know where each and every margin is or you’ll never make it.
The story about the farmer who won the Powerball lottery expresses it best. He was asked what he was going to do with all the millions he’d won. “Oh, I figure I’ll just keep farmin’ till the money runs out.”
What’s a cow??
That’s the second manure spreader story I’ve heard in as many days. I love MN.
No day is complete without a little manure.
once in the morning and once in the afternoon
Hi, Steph,
your father-in-law put me on to your article about cows, mainly b/c I grew up on a farm in CA–near Modesto, where my brothers still run the dairy. We used to host field days for kids in the city schools to visit the farm, etc. Some wouldn’t touch milk from a cow, however–b/c, as they insisted, their milk came from a bottle, not a cow!
all the best,
Mike Holmes
Bethel U.
Ah, yes. And can you see these city school kids being the world leaders in agriculture? I’m not saying it’s impossible… just a little improbable.
We raised our own meat and grew our own veggies at the farm I grew up on. I still remember some of my cousins asking where our grilled chicken was from because, “They always get their meat at the store.” They said it with the same snobbiness that I’ve heard from people saying, “I only drive a BMW,” or “I only buy Guess jeans.” It was always laughable.
Whenever my dad would get meet from the store, he would always announce to our family, “Now, prepare yourselves, this meat was from the store.” We would all gasp and chuckle. My dad would go on, “Who knows what kind of farm they were raised on, how they were treated, or what they ate. Maybe they were mistreated, covered in lice, and pumped full of hormones. Well, we’ll never know because it’s from the store.”
It made me always feel safer knowing where my food came from.