32 pounds

Looking at the picture of myself I realize that I was getting a little chunky. Ok, I was getting fat. I went to the doctor yesterday, since the last time I visited the doctor earlier this year, in February I think, I have lost 32 pounds. I weighed in at 215 yesterday. I have not been at 215 since back before I had graves disease. I need to loose another 5 maybe 10 pounds, I assume that this last little bit will be the hard part. I am hoping that when I start refereeing soccer in a couple of weeks the running will help me shed the last of this. It feels great to not have the extra 32 pounds! I feel better and feel like I have more energy. For me it was a simple adjustment in my diet and quiting the Mt. Dew coupled with riding my bike in the mornings, usually about 3 miles is all. Who knew it would be so easy? I will have to post an updated photo of myself.

Cow Chips: Can't Drive a Cow to Water, But You Can Lead It There

When we first put the Panguitch Cows in the Ivins field they did not know where to get water. They were being a little skittish and would not leave the south east corner of the field, the corner farthest away from the roads on the east and north. The problem was that the water tank was against the west fence. This is where the hose bib used to fill the tank was at. After leaving the cows in the field for a day we tried unsuccessfully to drive the cows over to where the water tank was at.

There were three cows in particular that would not cooperate and would lead the herd away from where we wanted them to go back to the corner where they had been. I was trying to herd them on foot and dad would drive along in the pickup. The cows would go in the right direction until they reached about the half way mark, then the three ornery cows would lead the rest right back to where they had come from. This caused me a lot of running and yelling and caused dad to try and chase them down with the pickup honking and swearing. I am certain that anyone watching the whole thing was getting a good laugh. After multiple attempts we decided to leave them alone and let them get a little thirstier before we tried again.

The next morning we changed our strategy. We loaded a 500 gallon water tank into the back of dad’s truck full of water. When we pulled into the field the cows were thirsty and ready for a drink. We opened the valve on the tank and let the water start to run out. This got the cow’s attention and they came over and proceeded to fight over the water coming out of the tank. Dad simply drove the truck across the field with the water running out right up next to the overflowing water tank. Once the cows found the water tank we did not have to try to get them to go water, they would go on their own when they were thirsty.    

Cow Chips: Outsmarting the Cows

There are some cows that just do not want to do what you want them to. This is usually the case when we are trying to corral the cows to move them from one location to another. Normally this involves feeding hay in the corral where we want to catch the cows, a lot of irritation, and depending on who is around at the time a lot of swearing. This chapter was inspired by my experience trying to corral the Panguitch cows that were in the field in Ivins.

Out of the twenty-seven cows that were in Ivins there were three that, of course, were difficult. These three cows evaded us on the first day when we took twenty of them to Arizona. After hauling off the first two loads we tried to corral the remaining seven, these three cows were having nothing to do with the corral. Dad and I threw some hay out in the corral and then would walk away, the cows would go over by it, but as soon as we tried to move over to pen them they would take off out into the field leading all the rest of the cows out into the field with them. After several attempts at this we changed our plan; we decided to leave them to eat in the corral overnight and try to pen them the next day.

The next day I once again took some hay into the corral and spread it out. Four of the cows went right in while I was sweeping my truck out, the other three would not. I walked out into the field and the other three went into the corral; however, as soon as I started over to shut the gate they would take off out into the field. I tried this several times with the same result. Now I had to figure out how to outsmart the cows.

I had left my truck close to the gate, this turned out to be a good thing. I finally decided to let the three cows stand out in the field, (the other four did not care what I was doing, they were busy gobbling up as much hay as they could) and I walked over to my truck and got in. After a few minutes of sitting quietly in my truck the other three cows came into the corral and started to eat. I was able to step out of my truck and shut the gate before they realized what was going on. I had outwitted my four legged friends.

Many times in life we have to stop and out think the problem at hand. I find myself getting frustrated and throwing my hands into the air when in reality all I have to do is stop and think about what needs to be done. Too often I wait for someone else to solve the problem for me. In the case with the cows, there was no one to solve my dilemma for me and I knew that dad was counting on me to get the cows corralled so that we could take them over the hill. I had to stop, I had to think about a solution, and then I had to implement the solution. Doing this worked, I was able to corral the ornery cows that did not want to go into the corral. There have been many times throughout my life when this is all I had to do. Sometimes I have, sometimes I have not. The lesson is stop, think and apply. Sometimes the answer is too simple.  

Cow Chips: Follow the Leader

One of the observations I made of the cows was that they like to follow the leader. I do not think that they do this the way sheep do, however, I have noticed that if one cow goes in a certain direction, there will generally be more that follow. My earlier story about the strays leading off our herd at Panguitch is an example of this. This follow the leader tendency is most apparent when you are trying to move the cows from one place to the other.

Most of the time when we are moving the cows there are enough older cows that know what we are doing that they are able to lead the others in the right direction. I have always considered the cows to be incredibly stupid, however, I do have to give them credit, they do remember places and as we move them from one range to the other they seem to know where to go. This would work out really nice if we did not always have one or two that may know where we want them to go that refuse to go there. These rebellious cows can lead an entire herd of cows in the wrong direction. When the cows are agitated they will be more prone to follow the leader, unfortunately the leader will inevitably be one of the cows that does not want to told what to do.

Dealing with this dilemma takes some effort. The remedy is to play the tendency to follow the leader against them. The way to do this is to allow the rebellious uncooperative cows to hang back in the herd, and then force the more cooperative cows to lead. This does not always work, but for the most part it is an effective way to manipulate the cows into doing what you want.    

Cow Chips: The Tenacity of Bulls

The Bulls are one of the more entertaining things to watch when dealing with the cows. Bulls can also be potentially very dangerous. Bulls do not like each other; this is even truer when there are cows around. Like dogs the bulls have to decide who is boss: they do this by fighting. Bulls are tenacious and relentless. Once they get it in their mind to do something there is not much you can do about it. Whenever we have more than one bull at the feed yard there is always situations when you have to put them in the same corral. When you do, they will more than likely fight. Watching a good bull fight is entertaining, but usually results in torn up corrals, mangers, fences and causes a lot of swearing. Having to deal with bulls who want to fight is dangerous; however, sometimes you have to intervene to protect the corrals, cows and even themselves. We have had two bulls gang up on another bull and kill it in the past.

The entertainment value did not go down this year since we had to put a small young bull in the corral with our Panguitch bull. The Panguitch bull is a massive specimen and he out weight this younger bull by I would guess close to a thousand pounds. The smaller bull wanted to fight, the bigger one was game and would not back down. The interesting thing is that the big bull would push the smaller one all over the place; it was obvious which one was the bigger stronger bull. However, this did not stop the smaller bull from tenaciously trying to establish his dominance over the larger bull. Fortunately, they stayed in the corral, and although they tore up the ground in the corral they did not damage any of the corrals or themselves.

For a little while we put two smaller bulls in with the big one. After watching for a while I could see how the smaller bulls could possibly kill or injure the bigger one. One of the smaller bulls would engage the big one from the front, and then the other one would hit the larger bull in the hind quarters and cause him to fall. Sometimes when you put bulls together they will figure out quickly who is bigger and stronger and they will get along with each other. This was not the case this time, we had to separate them. They would stand in their respective corrals on opposite sides of the feed lot and bellow at each other and throw dirt up over their backs with their hooves. This time we were able to avoid having any broken up corrals or injured bulls.

Cow Chips: Standing in Water

While we had the cows from Panguitch in the Ivins field we would water them using a 350 gallon round tank. In an effort to keep water in the tank we would leave a trickle of water running into it, this would cause the tank to over flow from time to time and created a large puddle of water around the tank. This started to be a problem so we would shut the trickle of water off when the puddle got too big. This made it so that we would have to go twice a day and turn the water on to fill the tank. Imagine my surprise when I pulled up one morning to find most of the 20 cows standing by the water tank. They were ankle deep in water, the water tank was actually floating on the puddle and here they stood waiting for a drink! I was always amazed to find the cows standing in this puddle of water looking for a drink in an empty water tank that was floating in the puddle of water; it happened over and over again while the cows were there.

What was wrong with the water that they were standing in? I have seen cows drink from less desirable circumstance, in fact, when they were fighting over the water leak in the St. George field there was less water and it was all churned up and muddy to boot! This water was a puddle yes, but it was not all churned up and muddy. There they stood, ankle deep in water, waiting for water. I often wonder if they would die of thirst standing in that water. I look at myself and wonder how often I do the same thing. Do I recognize when this is what I am doing? Do I correct it? Or am I oblivious to the fact that my feet are wet while waiting for a drink? I truly hope that I never do this, wait for something to happen when what I need is right here right now.

Cow Chips: Cool, Clear Water

While the cows were in the St. George field they had access to the Santa Clara River to get water. Although in reality the Santa Clara River is nothing more than a creek in the summer time the water flowing there is plentiful and clear. One would think that this readily available water would be sufficient to keep the cows watered; however, I was somewhat surprised when the cows started fighting over a small leak in one of the wheel line risers.

One morning when I went to feed at the St. George field I noticed several cows congregated around one of the wheel line risers out in the hay field. As I got closer I could see that there was a large area around the riser that looked wet where the cows were trampling the hay out. I walked over to investigate and sure enough there was a small trickle of water coming from the riser. There were some cows that were so interested in the water and chasing each other away from the water that they paid no attention to me until I was within a few feet of them. Even then I had to shoo them away so that I could get a closer look at my leak. The cows that I shooed off did not go far, they were thirsty. The leak that I found would have probably taken two days to produce enough water for a single cow, yet here the cows were, fighting over the leak. There is a creek flowing with plentiful living water and the cows spend all day fighting over the water coming from a leak in a riser. As they fought over the trickle of water coming from the riser they were destroying a large patch of alfalfa. They were not concerned at all about the destruction that they were causing because they were so focused on the trickle of water, ignoring the plentiful water available to them in the creek.

How often do we get sidetracked by a trickle of water? There have been times in my life that I became so focused on what was going on right in the moment that I neglected what was going on around me. Once again the cows have brought to my attention a life altering lesson to be learned. We do that in our lives as well, however, for the most part the destruction is related to our relationships. As we fixate on what is right in front of us we fail to see the damage and destruction that we cause to those who are close to us. There have been times when work, school, hobbies, even the farm have caused me to fixate on something to a point where my family has suffered. Watching the cows I recognized this in a way that I had not seen it before.   

Cow Chips: Cows Drool

One of the more amusing things that I have seen the cows do is drool. When we feed we will bring bales of hay over by the manger and break them open. Once we have all of the hay out and broken open we will start to feed it. We do this to avoid a couple of problems that arise from breaking the hay open in the manger. First the cows will fight over the hay, if the bale is broken in the manger this fighting has more time to get more intense before we start to feed. This can cause the cows to actually break the manger down trying to push each other out of the way. The other problem is that we run the risk of poking an eye out with the pitch fork since the cows are not about to pull their heads out of the manger so that we can scatter the hay. What does this have to do with the cows drooling? It takes a few minutes to get the hay out, broke open and ready to start feeding. The cows react to this the same was dogs do when they are about to be fed, they drool.

The big difference between cows and dogs in this respect is the amount of drool. You have not seen drool until you see a cow drool. The drool explains why the boards in the bottom of the manger are always soaked and slimy. Some cows will drool more rapidly than others; others do not drool at all. The most aggressive cows seem to be the ones who drool the most. I will purposely take my time sometimes just to watch the reaction. I am sure that the cows do not appreciate my experiments. I am always amused to see the large stringers of drool hanging from their waiting jowls.

Although there is no apparent life altering lesson to be learned from the fact that a cow will drool like a dog, I did learn something about myself. I am easily amused. What is even more interesting is that my family is easily amused, especially my kids. They thought that this story of cows drooling was one of the funniest ones that I have told them. For me it is one more amusing thing for me to look forward to when I go to feed the cows.

Cow Chips: Licking the Manger Clean

One of the projects that I took on this fall was repairing some of the mangers at the feed yard. Our hay mangers are built out of 2 x 6, 8, 10 or 12 lumber and most of them are in various stages of disrepair. The mangers are anywhere from completely non-existent to just rebuilt a couple of years ago. As I was looking at the mangers that I was working on I noticed something about the boards that make up the bottom of the manger. They were completely worn smooth, and in some cases worn away from the cows licking them.

I knew that cows have relatively rough tongues, but I never considered the sandpaper effect that their tongues would have on a piece of lumber. In some cases they have worn large holes in between the boards leaving large holes where they have licked the dirt clean as well. A cow tongue is not only rough, but they are long as well. On the mangers where there is a gap between the bottom board and the side board the cows will stick there tongue through and lick the ground on the outside of the manger. This is where the problem is created.

When the cows are stretching their tongues out to try and lick up whatever hay that they can get to there are two things that happen. First they wear the boards out creating larger holes in the manger. When the manger gets a hole the hay will fall into the hole compounding the whole problem as the cows try and fish this way-ward hay out of the holes with their tongues. Although it is amusing to watch, it creates a lot of work repairing the damage. Then the second problem is that our fence posts that hold the mangers are set into red blow sand. We do not set them with concrete, heaven forbid, we may want to take the post out some day, and therefore, as the cows lean and strain and stretch to try and reach whatever hay they can, they push the posts over and break the boards in the manger. This also creates work to repair the damage done.

I wonder why the cows will expend so much time and energy to pick up a few stray flakes of hay; most of which are so small I doubt that they can even taste them. They will stick their tongue out and flop it on the board or in some cases the dirt and drag it along so that any hay that is there will stick to their tongue. When they are finished the manger will be spotlessly clean. If only my kids were that efficient at cleaning up their plates, I would not need a dish washer.

Cow Chips: Eating Habits

As the cows started to come in and we started feeding them I began to observe their eating habits, more specifically, the different eating habits of cows compared to the calves we had weaned. The two groups are very different in the way that they react to being fed. I would purposely tease the cows as I fed them once I recognized the difference because their reaction amuses me. In fact, it was the stories about feeding the cows that started me on writing this book. My family thought what I was telling them was hilarious and wanted me to write it in a book.

When we feed the cows we bring bales of hay over by the manger and break them open on the outside where the cows cannot reach them. This makes it easier to distribute the hay evenly along the manger. The cows and calves will both come to the point where we break the bale open and start sticking their heads through the manger; the cows will also start fighting for position, the calves are more patient in this respect. I normally start feeding away from where the bale is broken open and work towards where it is at. When I throw the first forkful of hay the most aggressive cows will go to where it lands in the manger. This is where you start to see the dominate cows, the ones who are more aggressive. They will go to where that first forkful of hay lands and fight to get at it. They will head butt each other in the side and push the other cows out of the way. The more aggressive cows will do this all the way down the manger as I feed. The amusing part to me is that the aggressive cows seem to spend so much time trying to chase the other cows away from the hay that in the end they get less hay than the more patient cows. I found that I can lead them with the hay, if I take a forkful and walk up the manger they will follow, if I throw it in the other direction they will change course and go to it. If I put the first hay in front of one of the “shy” cows the more aggressive ones will chase them away from it. For the most part once the hay is fed and the manger is full this settles down, but there seems to be at least one cow in each bunch that will run all over the place chasing other cows away from the food until it is gone. The cows that do this actually end up with less hay than if they would just stay in one place.

The calves react differently, they will crowd in as close as they can get to where the bale is broken open, and will stay there even when I start feeding down the manger from the spot. Sometimes I think that they would starve to death if I did not feed any hay in the spot where I broke the bale open. At first the calves did not fight each other much. The longer that they are separated from their mothers, the more they divide into dominate and shy personality types. They still have not reached the aggressiveness of the older cows, and probably will not until they get out in the open range where feed is not as plentiful.

I see some of the same personality traits in people that I see in the cows. There are people who are aggressive in going after what they want, running from one thing to the next, people who are never satisfied with what they have, always wanting more. There are those who always want what someone else has. There are people who seem to be more patient, who are satisfied with what they have, or get so focused on one thing that they do not see the opportunities around them. There are also those who let others push them around. I have spent a lot of time this fall trying to figure out what type of person I am. So far, I am stumped, I have at times been most of these personalities, some more than others.

Cow Chips: Sudan Grass

During the summer we planted Sudan Grass in the Ivins field. Sudan grass is a good late summer feed crop that grows well in the area. It grows tall and thick and will grow again after being cut. Since it will not survive the winter and grow again in the spring like alfalfa, we let it grow after cutting it and use it as pasture grass for our Panguitch cows until we can take them into Arizona. We will usually stack part of the crop of Sudan grass that we harvested in the field in Ivins to feed the cows after they have eaten the live grass off. This year was no different than others, we had part of our oats crop and part of our Sudan grass crop stacked in the field with a panel fence around it when we brought the cows in from Panguitch and unloaded them.

Imagine if you will a herd of cows in a field of grass that is up past their bellies, all they have to do is graze to their hearts content and relax without a worry at all. If this is the scenario you have imagined, you have imagined wrong. Yes the cows did graze in the Sudan grass, however, because we knew beforehand that the feed would not last long enough, we also supplemented the grass with the dried, baled up version of the Sudan grass that we harvested earlier in the summer. Logic would say that the cows would not be interested in this dried version of the grass that they were eating during the day. Once again with the cows, logic would be incorrect.

Each evening after turning the cows out into the Sudan grass we would load several bales of the same stuff up in the back of dad’s pickup and take it to Ivins. When we pulled into the field the cows would leave the living Sudan grass that they were enjoying and come running, literally, to the truck to get the dried up version of the stuff. They can have all of the living Sudan grass that they can eat, and yet they come running to get the stuff that has been cut, dried, and baled. After a few days the cows would be waiting for us when we got there, we would show up at about four in the afternoon, after a couple of days at about three thirty they would start for the corner of the field where we feed them at.  It seems that the cows prefer the old version instead of the new. They like the stuff that they are used to.

This preference of the old dry Sudan grass in the bales was strong enough that the cows became impatient one day waiting for us to bring them some and broke into the stack of Sudan grass that we had stacked up in the field, remember chapter three. They found the flaw in my fence and exploited it. They were not content to stay out in the field with all of the Sudan grass, instead they wanted to be in what seemed to be a “Golden Corral” to the cows, an all you can eat hay stack, which they proceeded to make a terrible mess out of. Since I am not able to read the cow’s mind I do not know why they would break down a perfectly good fence to get to some dried up old hay when they can eat all of the grass that they want. Again, they seem to like the stuff that they are used to.

In life we also oftentimes turn to something old and familiar when there is a field of “living grass” at our feet. For some reason, we prefer the dried hay to the living grass. I really do not know why.

Cow Chips: Fences--All Fences Have Flaws

One thing that I learned over the summer of 2009 is that “All fences have flaws”. This being said I learned some important truths about cows and fences. First: All fences have flaws and the cows will always find the flaw. Second: A content cow will stay within the fence, even if it is not adequate to stop the cow from going through it. Third: There are some cows that are never content and will therefore find the flaws in the fence. Last: There are not very many fences that will hold a cow if the cow decides that it really wants to be on the other side of the fence.

After spending the summer building fences I made the mistake of thinking that I had become good at it. I was proud of my fences, I was mistakenly confident that the fences that I had built would hold the cows where we wanted them to be. One of the most surprising things to me was which fences failed, and which ones worked. Some of the fences I built in a way that I thought would work. Other fences that I built I called “scarecows” because scaring the cows away is the only way that they could work. The first test of my fences came when we first put cattle in the St. George field. The day after we put the cows in the field I went to check to see if the fences were holding. This was the day I learned firsthand where the phrase “the grass is always greener on the other side” comes from.

To explain I need to describe what I saw on this particular morning. As I drove into the field I got to a point where I could see the first fence that I had built across the Santa Clara River. This fence was built in a path that I had made through the willows, trees, weeds, and cattails. Because the fence was built in this path there is a narrow trail along the fence. The important point here is that the willows, trees, weeds and cattails are identical on both sides of the fence. What I observed on this particular morning was several cows standing on one side of the fence in the willows, trees, weeds, and cattails pushing against the fence so that they could reach the identical willows, trees, weeds, and cattails on the other side of the fence. This particular fence held, but this is not the only place the cows have pushed on the fence trying to get to what is on the other side. I have not been so fortunate with some of the other fences and corrals that I have built this summer.

There are several lessons that can be learned from observing the cows in relation to the fences. One of my first observations is that many times we will look longingly at something that we want when what we have is every bit as good, possibly even better. Sometimes we will “push the fence down” only to find out that what was on the other side is detrimental to our happiness and not such a good thing after all. There are other times when we will stand contentedly within our fence not doing anything more than what we are doing when things could be much better if we would simply push our boundaries a little bit. I’m not saying that we should jump the fence all the time, what I am getting at is that we need to not let our boundaries hold us back from becoming better. Sometimes if we step out of our comfort zone we learn and grow and become better for it. Do not get me wrong, the cows are never better for getting past the fence. However, people are not cows and can reason well enough to know when to push a boundary and when to be content.     

Cow Chips: Strays--Being Led Astray

I went with my brother Allen and cousin Nick to Panguitch to get the cows. I can vaguely remember riding to Panguitch in the big truck (2 ton cattle truck that we used to use to haul our cows) when I was a kid. I have never been involved in moving the cows to or from Panguitch since I have reached adulthood. On this trip we were picking up the calves so that we could wean them; one load would go straight to the auction, the rest would go to Santa Clara. The cows would be left at Panguitch for a little while longer. Most of the cows that were at Panguitch this year had been there before, and they seemed to know what was going to happen. When the trucks show up they know that there will be hay. We had loaded several bales of hay; several of the cows came right up to the corral knowing that there would be hay there. Most of them were too far out in the meadow to notice that we were there. Allen had brought his horse, Monty, to gather the cows out of the meadow and get them going toward the corral. Normally once they are headed in the right direction they will see the hay and go right to it. Of course this was not a normal day, so things did not go as planned.

Once Allen got the cows gathered out in the meadow and had them started toward the corral we ran into a little bit of a problem. There were several strays in the herd that were not familiar with our little program and had other ideas about what was going to happen. Cows are like any other livestock and have a tendency to follow the leader. They are not as inclined to do this as sheep, but, when one cow takes off in a certain direction, there are going to be others that will at least try to follow. This is what happened, the strays decided that they did not want to go to the corral and took off back out into the meadow. With only one horse, Nick and I could not cover enough terrain on foot to head them off and get them going in the right direction. The strays successfully led the entire herd back out into the meadow, which caused a great deal of yelling from all of us and much swearing from my brother and cousin.

The solution was to start over by separating a majority of the strays out of the herd in the meadow and then bring our cows up to the corral again.  Once again Allen brought the herd up the fence line toward the corral. Nick threw some hay out where they could see it. This worked much better and without the strays leading them astray, we were able to get them into the corral. Once the cows were in the corral we could separate the cows and calves and be on our way.

It is interesting to note the effect that the strays had on the herd of cows, leading them away from the corral and back out into the meadow. As I reflect back upon this effect, I realized that our acquaintances can have an effect on us as well. We try to teach our kids to pick good friends, friends who will have a positive influence upon them instead of the opposite. There are far too many examples out there where good people have been led astray by the influence of a friend. On the flip side, there are also many examples of a friend having a positive influence on others. I hope that I can be that positive influence; I also hope that I can teach my kids to be a positive influence and lead their friends to do good and not be led astray by their not so good acquaintances.   

Cow Chips: Of Cows and Men

One of the first lessons that I learned from the cows really did not have anything to do with the cows. This lesson came to me shortly after we first put cows in the St. George field in early October. I can remember driving down to the field the first couple of days and checking to make sure that my fences had held. I spent a lot of time watching the cows and feeling a great deal of satisfaction with my work. It felt good to see them grazing in the alfalfa, or stomping around in the growth in the river bottom. The calves were getting plenty of milk from their mothers and the cows looked fat and healthy. The fences were holding; the cows were content and doing well. The image of the cows in the green alfalfa field is burned into my memory. This is not the first time I have seen this scene, however, this time it made an impression on me.

As I reflect upon why seeing the cows in the hay field this time made such an impression upon me I realized that I enjoy the work. There is satisfaction in working hard. There is something that a person gets from hard physical labor that can be obtained in no other way. Seeing the cows in the St. George field this fall had an impact upon me because of the time and effort that I put into making it possible. I have been taught all my life that there is joy that comes from working hard. Seeing the cows this year helped me recognize the joy and contentment that comes from a job well done. Reflecting back, there are many aspects of farm work that causes this reaction in me. I have always felt satisfaction in seeing freshly cut hay in neat windrows, bales in lines in the field, a new stack of hay or a freshly planted field. This time seeing the cows in the field helped me to recognize that there is joy in these things.

Satisfaction in hard work is not the only thing that I learned about myself over the summer. I realize that I truly love the land. Deep down I have always known that I have a love for the land and what it can produce. I have always been sickened by subdivisions, commercial developments and golf courses being built on farm land. My own home is sitting upon a onetime onion patch and hay field. Progress will continue to claim more and more land; the thought saddens me. Seeing a lava rock pile pushed over for homes dose not bother me so much, but I really hate to see good farm land used for building lots.

I miss the days of going to the St. George field and not being able to see the development around. This part of our farm was undeveloped when I was young. There was no golf course or houses. When we were on the property we were at the farm, and that was the amount of it. We could go and work at the farm and no one knew what we were planning to do with the property, and no one asked. As I was building fences I had people from both sides of the Santa Clara River come and ask what I was doing, wanting to know what my plans were. I had people at Sunbrook tell me that I couldn’t build the fences across the river; they were going to go to the “city” and put a stop to it. I had one neighbor to the west tell me that we could not put cows on the property arguing that there were no cows there when he bought his property. There were others who were upset because my fences blocked the four wheeler trails; and still others who were upset because the fences blocked their access to the river bottom. I had to move one fence to accommodate a turnaround at the end of a street. I learned to bite my tongue, to be patient, to explain what I was doing, to be a liaison between the neighbors and my dad and to negotiate with people. Working through all of the difficulties was a pain, but in the end I was able to work it all out.

In the end I have had great satisfaction in seeing the cows on the property. For the first time in my life I really liked seeing the cows, I found myself looking forward to seeing them and some of the interesting things that they do. I started looking for the lessons that I could learn from them. Some of my observations were funny, all were thought provoking for me. This became even truer after Barb asked me to write this book.

Cow Chips side note;

It is an interesting side note that the the fences that I worked so hard on in the summer of 2009 have since been washed out by another flood and once again need to be replaced. The problem now is that I have a full time job and I do not know when I will have the time to put them in. Last fall we didn't open the creek bottom up to the cows because we could contain them away from the creek. This year, after my dad's little accident with the fire, the barrier that kept the cows out of the creek is now burned up so fences will be required to keep the cows from visiting our neighbors across the creek at Sunbrook. That is another story in and of itself, I believe I called that chapter of Cow Chips Houdini.

Angry Daughter

After posting the introduction to Cow Chips on my blog my oldest daughter Rachel cornered me after work and informed me that I can't just put the introduction on and not the rest of it. She was not very happy with me when I told her that she would have to wait to see the rest. I do not want to post any part of what I have written until I have reviewed and in some cases altered it to my liking. This takes time and is something I decided I would do on my lunch break at work. So for any one else who is impatient, I am sorry but that is the way it is going to be.

Cow Chips Introduction

I have never really thought that cows were amusing before the summer of 2009; nor did I ever dream that there was anything to be learned from observing the behavior of cows. Spending a summer unemployed and working on the farm has changed the way I look at the cows that we own; and the way that they relate to my life.

Although my family has been involved in the cattle business my whole life, I have never really had much interest in the cows. My interest has always been in taking care of and operating the farm equipment used to raise and harvest the hay crops used to feed the cows; I would only help with the cows when extra hands were needed. I have always considered the cows to be one of the dumbest animals on the face of the planet and treated them as such. This being the case I have never really wanted anything to do with them.

In June of 2009 I found myself unemployed with no immediate prospects for work. Dad had plenty of projects that needed to be done around the farm, so I spent the summer helping with some of them. Most of the summer was spent in two areas. One was irrigating, and harvesting the hay crops for the coming fall when we would be feeding the cows. The second was replacing the fences on our farm on the Santa Clara River so that we could once again put cows on the property. The fences for this piece of ground had been taken out by a subdivision on the west and the 2005 flood in the Santa Clara River. There had been no cows on the property since the fall of 2004. After the flood in January 2005 this property, known to my family as the St. George field, had been baron until the previous fall when we purchased and installed a sprinkler line and once again planted an alfalfa crop on it. Dad was anxious to get the fences back up so that we could use the alfalfa for pasture and put part of the cows on the property in the coming fall. Building the appropriate fences was a project that I started to really take ownership in. It became my personal project.

Anyone who has ever been involved in building barb wire fences will understand what a project like this can turn into; and I need to explain the process a little bit in order to set up some of the lessons I have learned from the cows. First, do not wear any clothing that you do not want holes in. You cannot work around barb wire for any length of time without destroying your pants, shirts, gloves, or any other article of clothing you might be wearing. Second, you are going to bleed. I had my fair share of battle wounds over the course of the summer. I don’t think that there was a day throughout the whole summer when I didn’t have scratches from building fence. Third, building fence is hard labor. Most days while building fence I did not make it much past noon on the fence. The afternoon usually found me working at one of the many easier tasks that my parents needed done at the house or one of their rentals. Fourth, building fences across the Santa Clara River (creek) is not an easy task. The river bottom is choked with willows, reeds, cotton wood trees and many other plants and weeds. In order to build a fence across the creek, or in my case two different fences, paths had to be cleared by hand through the undergrowth. Finally, you never know how strong the fence needs to be to keep the cows where you want them. Sometimes the strongest fences will not hold, other times, the weakest ones do. These last two points are significant and will come up again later in the book.

After spending the summer working on fences, mangers, corrals and other projects on the property I started to really take ownership of the work that I was doing. For the first time in my life the farm was something more to me. It had always been my dad’s or my brother’s thing in the past, I helped when I could, but never really felt like I had a part in it. That all changed over the summer of 2009. I had worked hard building new fences and repairing old ones around the perimeter of an approximately thirty acre piece of property. I had rebuilt mangers and corrals, cleaned up trash, harvested alfalfa and repaired sprinkler lines among other things. The crowning event took place the first part of October when we brought in nineteen cows and calves and a bull. This was the test to see if my work was in vain, would the fences hold?

This is when the lessons I learned from observing cows started. I started to notice the behavior of the cows, things that I had never paid attention to before. The cows intrigued me; I would tell my family some of the funny things that they do when I would get home. It was one of these conversations around the dinner table that inspired this book. My wife made the suggestion that I write about the experiences so that she could read them. At one point she requested a “book” for Christmas, a book with the stories that I had been telling the family about the cows. Thus, Cow Chips was born, the idea for the name, and many of the stories that I would include were formulated that evening. As I was thinking about the different stories I realized that there was more to it than just amusing stories; I realized that many of the things that I observed caused me to think, and that there were lessons that I have learned about life from my observations.  I decided to make the book more meaningful by sharing the insights about life that I have had occur to me from observing cows. The following is my attempt.

Cow Chips

A while back (about 3 years ago) while I was unemployed I spent a lot of time at the farm. While working on the farm I spent a lot of time observing the cows and their behavior. While telling my family about some of the things that I observed they said that I should write it down. I started to but never finished. Cow Chips is the name of the work, as I started writing it some of the stuff I liked, the rest I didn't so I never finished. Writing about my adventures in the mud at the farm this morning made me think of Cow Chips and I thought I would share some of it. Unfortunately, there are some of the chapters that I never got around to writing. I will add to it as I get time and as I can remember what I was thinking when I made the 18 chapter titles.

Stuck in the mud....

Made the mistake of taking Jacob's truck to the farm this morning in the rain to change the water. A 2 wheel drive S-10 pick up is not a very good idea in the mud. Spent more time trying to get the truck out of the mud than it took me to change the water. Jacob thought that this was very funny. I did learn that stuffing tumble weeds under the tires will give you the traction you need to get out of the mud. Another one of the many life lessons learned at the farm.

Go Warriors!

Lydia played in her first region girls soccer game. They won 3-2. They are 4-0 over all winning all three of their pre-season games. I have really enjoyed watching them play, the passing is crisp and precise, the mechanics are incredible. It has been a lot of fun. She plays her first away game in Cedar on Thursday, Canyon View and Dixie look like the teams that they will have to beat. She came home last night pumped up and excited, it has been a lot of fun.

I hate BYU

I was looking at Facebook during my lunch break, there were several posts about BYU. As I looked at the ever present question on Facebook "What's on your mind" I had to post my hatred of BYU. This comes from sports, I have always been one who hates the team that everyone around me likes. BYU has been the college team that the majority of the people I know likes. I cannot separate the sports from the school so, I hate BYU. I don't really like another college team, in sports I am that way, I don't have favorite teams, I have teams that I hate. Baseball it is the Yankees, Basketball the Lakers, Football the Cowboys.... You get the picture. With college teams, BYU gets the winning # just because so many people here in Utah likes them. So, now you know what is on my mind today. Very shallow I know. Some days there isn't much going on in my stupid little head.

Didn't realize

Reflecting back at some of my posts I didn't realize how much time has passed and how many mile stones we have had. I just read the post right before Barb and I went to Hawaii. I have a college student now!!! Next year I will have a missionary!!! Jacob was ordained an elder before he went to college. I have been ordained a high priest. 2 more big mile stone events in our lives. Ok, I am feeling like a big slacker for not documenting what is going on in our lives better....

I need a new picture

I was just looking at the blog and saw the picture I took of myself back when I worked at Worldwide Rental, over 4 years ago.... I have been eating differently, mostly not so much sweet stuff and no Mt. Dew., and I have been riding a bike in the mornings. I have lost about 40 pounds. I look a little different than any of the pictures that I have posted here or on Facebook. I will have to get a new one sometime.

Here we go again

Another year is almost gone. A lot has happened. Jacob is starting his first day of classes at the U today. That has been a big adjustment, we dropped him off a week ago tomorrow. Rachel is now a junior in high school, she is taking some college classes and continues to play the violin. Lydia has played another season of soccer, Spring 2012 RCL champions, undefeated. They took a heart breaking silver medal in the Summer Games, she is now playing for Snow Canyon High School, she made the team! She is still playing the flute and piano. Rachel and Lydia played a violin / flute duet in church last Sunday, it was awesome. Because I won't be involved in coaching Lydia's soccer team for now, Rachel and I got certified to be soccer referees. It will be fun to still be involved in soccer. Jed is in the seventh grade and will be able to play rugby this spring. He is so excited. He is still playing the piano and as usual still a character. Josiah is the lone one in the elementary school, a big 4th grader. He is excited to play base ball in the spring. Barb started her first day of classes at the U in the social work program today. She has been really nervous about school this semester because she will be taking a full load of credits. It is going to be a busy time around our house... I am still working at DJB as the branch manager. The farm is now busier than ever since Jacob is not around to help. I think I took him for granted...

Time keeps flying by. Lydia will be getting her driving permit in October. Whoa, how did that happen? We were watching family videos last night from when she was first born. Our youngest is 9. The time is going by so fast. Anyway, Jacob started a blog, and that is what made me think of my blog. I haven't been too good at posting anything on here. Mostly I have been too busy. Right now there is a slow down at work so I have a few minutes.