Those Wonderful Cows

I can't think about my father without also thinking about the herd of Holstein cows he cared for and which provided him with a good income when other parts of his farming operation varied with the whims of the markets. Dad was many things with this herd: manager, strategist, veterinarian, planner, breeder, and caretaker. He actually did have a special relationship with each animal, and they responded to him in ways they would not with others. They were much better behaved in the barn than other dairy cows I happened to be around. Milk from the herd was tested monthly for quality and quantity. I still have some of his herd record books. He occasionally received awards for the production levels of selected cows or the overall herd. Dad was a very good dairy farmer. He didn't have a proper barn or the money to invest in a grade A milking operation. Grade A is for human consumption and means pipelines and bulk tanks and a level of cleanliness that simply wasn't possible with the resources Dad had available. Instead, his operation was grade B. That milk was dried and used for making animal feed and other products. Dad always said that it was the cows who put my sister and me through college and allowed him many other benefits in his later life.

I did a share of work with these cows too, including feeding them, cleaning their barn, assisting with the births of calves, and herding them to/from pasture. When I first got involved at a young age, Dad was selling cream instead of whole milk. That meant processing the milk through a cream separator. This was my job. I could start when Dad was about half finished milking and then be done only a little after all the cows had been milked. We used the skim milk (left over after the cream was removed) to make feed for Dad's hogs (we called it slop) or to feed calves. When I was old enough, Dad sometimes left me in charge of the farm so that he and Mom could travel. Getting up at 4:30AM every morning to do the milking and then doing it again at 5PM every evening with lots of other work in-between makes one appreciate how hard farmers work.

Betsy was pretty small the last few years that Mom and Dad were on the farm, but Rob and Will remember being there. Here are some pictures I love. Rob, with his curly blonde hair, is watching his grandfather milk a cow and then pour the results into a tall pail.

1963 Mercury Meteor

I don't always have current events or news to report, and since I've been spending lots of time lately organizing my old photographs and documents, I thought I might share an occasional story. When I look at these old pictures, I usually recall things that are not evident in the pictures alone. For example, here is a picture of me with my first car. This was taken in the spring of 1964 in City Park in Iowa City looking east across the river.

Let's get the obvious things out of the way first. Yes, at a mere 20 years old, I was thinner and had more hair. The car is a 1963 Mercury Meteor, a mid-size model. Fins were still popular, but the ones on this car were not quite as outrageous as some. I thought the lines of the car were quite nice, actually. The color was a deep burgundy, and the interior was a medium brown. White wall tires were still around, although these were the thin stripe versions that replaced the full white sidewalls of earlier years. I liked these better and still think they look nice. At the time, license plates in Iowa denoted the county in which the vehicle was licensed followed by a vehicle number. So, this car was licensed in county 16 (Cedar County), which was my official residence while I attended the State University of Iowa (later just the University of Iowa). My parents still operated a farm then near Lowden, Iowa. Other things that I notice about the car are its very tall antenna and its double headlights. One had to actually get out of the vehicle to adjust the height of the antenna in those years. Forgetting to put one all the way down at a drive-through car wash could be disastrous to the life of the antenna. Double headlights had been around for a few years on many cars, but that was a relatively recent approach for handling high and low beams. I don't recall anything about the mileage the car got, but gas only cost about $0.35 per gallon in 1984, and so I suppose good mileage wasn't much on my mind or anyone else's, for that matter, much to our eventual distress as a nation.

Now, regarding the non-obvious aspects of the picture. I think the picture was taken by Jim Inghram, who was my college roommate in an apartment we rented a couple blocks west of City Park. I came to own the car through some good fortune. Sometime during my early high school years, I had become interested in the stock market. My Great Uncle Mark dabbled in the market and nurtured my interest by explaining the market to me and discussing stocks and companies and the like. He was a very generous man, and at some point (a birthday, I think) bought 20 shares of Burlington Industries for me as a gift. I recall that the price per share was then about $17. When my father and I began to discuss my having a car of my own, we decided to sell the stock, which had risen in value to about $70 per share. This yielded enough to purchase this low-mileage used car from someone dad knew, also from Lowden. I remember dad being considerate about asking Great Uncle Mark if he minded our using the stock in this way. He didn't mind, and I recall his commenting that he should have bought a number of shares for himself when he bought mine.

This car served me well for several years until I eventually bought a new, gold, 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle with a floor-mounted stick shift and bucket seats. That car was ultimately badly damaged in a hail storm the size of baseballs. But that is another story.

Conehead

From Tighe: It was bad enough that they subjected me to the loss of my essential maleness, but then they abused me further by making me wear this dumb cone. I tried, with some success to rip it from my neck, and I made a point to crash into everything I could with it so as to be really annoying. I feel like nobody loves me. Everybody hates me. If the ground wasn't frozen, I'd go out to the garden and eat worms. (But then, that isn't beyond me at any time!)

Wisconsin Winter or Winter Near Winter, Wisconsin

Late last week, we drove up to our place in Wisconsin to enjoy some of the winter fun here. On the way, scenery along the Mississippi river south of Lacrosse was pretty this time of year.

Will, Sandy and Anders came to visit us for the weekend. The fun started with a required Friday night fish fry at one of our local restaurants.

Anders and his mom enjoyed the fireplace Saturday morning. Anders is holding a "snowman kit" that I bought. I suppose one could just use natural things, but the plastic carrot nose, pipe, buttons, and eyes, along with a scarf and cap will be good resources for snowman building for a long time. Besides, Anders thought it was a fun item and that is good enough for me.

I had gotten a new bread machine for Christmas to have at the lake. So, I thought Anders and I should make some raisin bread. He did a great job putting all of the ingredients into the baking pan. Then later, he and I enjoyed watching the machine mix everything up.

He is very careful with the "dumping", and having your mouth open and sometimes your tongue out helps too.

Anders has gotten to be quite the puzzler.

While mom and dad did some cross-country skiing, I took Anders for a long pull on a sled down our lane and back across the lake. After that, Grandma treated him to a nice warm dip in the tub. I'm not crazy about Macaulay Culkin, but I have to admit that this picture reminds me of him in Home Alone. Anders is definitely cuter and will grow to be a much nicer boy.

The next day, I showed Anders how we used to slide on scoop shovels when I was young. We didn't need saucer sleds! We just sat on the shovel, hung onto the handle, and pointed downhill. As long as you didn't spin sidewise or get backwards, it worked great! If that happened, you often enjoyed a bailout or tumble. With a little practice, you could learn to keep the edge from digging in and do a complete spin. Give it a try! I highly recommend it.

You may have seen the earlier pictures that Sandy posted of Anders' outing on the cool little snowshoes that his dad made for him. Here he is trying them out again on our lake.

It got warm enough on Sunday to make a snowman and try out the snowman kit. See! It does work well. Anders liked it!

While dad and mom loaded the car for the trip back home, Anders practiced driving. I don't think he actually drove home, though. Rather, I imagine he was asleep by the time they got to the end of our lane. What a fun and rewarding weekend it was for us for them to be here with us.