I enjoy my farming chores 99% of the time. Sure, there are days when I am not so happy - like when an irresponsible neighbor’s dog kills my setting guinea and cracks all of ther eggs. Or when a lightning strike blows out my $65 electric fencer. But those types of frustrations vanish when you have a perfect day like yesterday.
In school we had an excellent day of reviews for th Standards of Learning test. After classes, i went to watch some of my children play soccer. The girls won their game and seemed excited that I had come to cheer for them. The boys game was very interesting. Our team is just incredible. Their ball-handling skills are amazing and they won their 17th game in a row with a score of 10-1. That one goal was scored when all the starters were on the bench and is only the third goal surrendered all season. I think the key to our dominance in the Valley League is that Harrisonburg is a mecca for immigrants. Our African and Hispanic players play like they were born with a soccer ball in their placentas. American kids take up the sport later and, in general, more haphazardly.
I stopped at my parents on the way home from work for dinner and arrived to find my wee daughter following Grandpa around the house on his watering rounds. Dad comes from a rather nondemonstrative German family, so it has been fun to watch my daughter wrap him around her little finger. She can even get him to do goofy dances with her.
I joined Dad and Emilie and took a tour of the new Smallholder Senior plantings. He had also (oh joy!) found a new source of organic compost - horse manure mixed with acidifying sawdust that will be a perfect mulch for my blueberries.
My wife arrived and we had a family dinner, my little sweetie of a daughter holding hands with grandpa and I during grace. Mom had made a delicious new recipe - chicken with mushroom sauce. My daughter cracked everybody up as she diligently devoured abig ear of Dad’s corn, hoilding onto the corn pins with her little 19 month-old hands.
It was dark when I got home, so I immediately went out to the pasture to check on the calves. They had demonstrated their frustration with the delayed attention by knocking over a couple of their watering bins. While I filled the bins, my Heifer Bonnie came up and laid the bottom of her jaw propreitarily on my chest, snorting foul cow breath into my face as she demanded attention. The other boys crowded around, pushing against my legs - the really demanding twin sucking on my shirttail and butting the keys in my pocket. Even one of the angus crosses came up to let me scratch his chin. The other, of course, was aloof, but wanted to stand next to me even if he wasn’t going to allow me to touch him.
It’s amazing how all eight animals have their own unique personalities. Bonnie is probably the most affectionate since she is basically a pet. The Holsteins are the next in terms of temperment; breeders have been selecting for temperment for years - an easily excited or fearful cow is bad news in the milking parlor. Angus are wilder, beefier cattle that are selected for easy calving, uniform growth, and quick gain on grain - none of which are particulalry appropriate for my operation since I don’t calve them, am not selling to a feedlot that demands uniform size, and don’t feed grain. They are certainly much wilder than the Holsteins even though they have been treated exactly the same way.
As I stood there, surrounded by Bonnie and my boys, I looked out over the dark fields and saw an amazing display of phosperesence. These were not the fireflies of my youth.
When I was a kid we used to chase fireflies in the evening. As I got older, there were fewer and fewer fireflies around - their larvae are vulnerable to herbicides and pesticides that are now applied to suburban lawns. The firefly population in the suburbs has plummeted in recent years as yuppies have escalated the turf wars.
The childhood fireflies I remember had long, slow, lazy light displays. The tail end might glow for three or four seconds and even small kids could approach and grab them. I have this type of firefly - they show up at dusk and do their little mating dance for an hour or so. But the ones I saw last night do their dance later. And instead of long glows, they emit flashbulb bursts - looking at the hills surrounding the farm, it was like being in a stadium with all the cameras taking pictures at once. Cool, cool cool. My own private, natural fireworks show.
Heh. I may be poor, but I am rich in ways you city folks can’t even imagine.
