It has been over 11 years since I wrote anything related to my stories about cows, I believe I started this project in 2008, and first published the stories on my blog in 2009. This morning, and I mean morning, it is 3:40am, I was in bed awake, unable to go back to sleep and thinking about Cow Chips, thinking about my stories about cows and mangers.... I have a Cow Chips heading called "licking the manger clean", however, this post is more about the structure of the manger itself than about the cows. To explain I will have to give some background about our feed lot.
Our feed lot was set up with 3 sets of mangers to feed the cows. In the front were the silage mangers, they ran the length of the feed lot and were made out of concrete. They were solid, unmovable and by far the area of our coral system that required the least amount of maintenance. The back mangers were our hay mangers which included the smaller pen / mangers where we could feed the calves away from the cows so that they could get a fair share and not be trampled. These mangers were made from wood.... I feel some explanation about the wood and or materials these mangers are made from is necessary. Our corals were built from materials that can be described as #1 cheap, and #2 what was available. The lumber used to build them was obtained from the local lumber yard and consisted of boards of various different sizes that were warped, split or otherwise unusable for the construction of homes or buildings. The lumber yard would take these construction rejects, stuff that a contractor would not accept or use and throw them into a pile of boards. When the lumber yard had a good sized pile they would call and we would go and pick them up, purchasing the pile at a fraction of the cost of buying quality lumber. We would then use this mismatched pile of boards to build and repair corrals and mangers. Repair of mangers and corrals also included salvaging anything that we could find that would make it so that we didn't have to go and get as many new boards out of our pile. This included saving nails, dad had a bucket full of old nails that had been pulled out and saved. On many occasions we would spend more time taking broken boards apart, pulling nails and piecing them back together again using old nails that we had to straighten so that we could hammer them back in than we would spend actually making a repair. "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" was the moto around our farm and ranch.
The coral configuration had the concrete manger in the front that ran the length of all the corals, with a single fence in between each corral in the front closest to the concrete mangers. The corrals were in pairs and there was a water trough set in between each pair of corrals in the middle of this fence so that there was one water trough for 2 corrals. On the back side the corrals separated to accommodate a single hay stack in between the 2 corrals forming an L shape on one side and a backwards L shape on the other. Each corral had a hay manger along the area where the hay stack was. These hay mangers were not concrete, they were made entirely from the assorted lumber I described above.
I describe all of this because it is the mangers that I am writing about. When they were first built they were straight, as in the fences stood straight vertically as well as being in a straight line. I was not around when they were new and so all I can remember is the hay mangers being in some form of disrepair, leaning heavily toward the hay stacks and in a slight zig zag line along their length. This is what was on my mind early this morning, the process of how these mangers got to be in this state. Here is where the cows come into the story. In an earlier section I tell about how the cows will lick the manger clean, they will stretch and strain to reach every last little flake of hay that they can get to. Thinking about the corrals my brother built when he moved the feed lot to Ivins, what he did different and ways the difference can be used as a life analogy is what had my mind going this morning so that I couldn't sleep. The mangers I grew up with that my dad and uncles built were short on the outside of the corral. They had a short board, just high enough to keep the cows from pushing the hay off of the back side. My brother on the other hand, built mangers with a taller piece of corrugated metal on the out side, tall enough that when the cows put their head into the manger they can't see over it. The effect is revealed in the condition of the corrals. The old feed lot mangers have fences that are leaning heavily toward the hay stack, posts that are pushing out of the ground, boards that are bowed and warped and broken from constant strain. My brother's corral fences remain straight. Because the cows can see what is beyond the manger at the old feed lot they will persistently stain against the manger fence, 15 to 20 cows 1800 to 2500 pounds each applying steady pressure against a barrier to reach what they can see just beyond will cause even the strongest fence to lean, warp, and break over time. Where as my brother's manger, where the cows can easily reach everything they can see will not apply that steady pressure against the manger fence. Another interesting observation is related to the concrete mangers. Even though they were low on the outside and the cows could see over them, they were built of a stronger material that was unmovable, therefore, we did not have the same leaning bowing effect on the manger fence with these mangers because of their construction.
There are many analogies that can be derived from this observation about our farm and the cows. If you constantly and consistently push the boundaries, the commandments, you will eventually break them. The concrete mangers were like building on a sure foundation or "rock" and were therefore better able to withstand the constant pressure applied by the cows in a way that the wooden mangers were not able to bear. Interestingly enough, the posts of the wooden mangers were set in sand and therefore had a "sandy" foundation making them more susceptible to the forces that constantly beat against them. The concrete mangers are an example of how taking the extra time and effort necessary to build something will make it last longer. The cows constantly pushing against the manger to reach those fleeting little bits of hay can be related to us when we push boundaries for things of this world that are not eternal and that are here today and gone tomorrow.
As is always the case I am not certain that all of what I was thinking this morning has been portrayed accurately in what I have written here. It is early, and I am feeling the tiredness of being up far too early. I will leave it to the reader to draw conclusions from my thoughts about mangers and cows. I hope that these personal conclusions will provide insights that will help those who read in some small way. I am trying to incorporate President Eyring's insight that he shared in 2007 where he shares about a time he had an impression that the Lord was speaking to his mind saying "I'm not giving you these experiences for yourself. Write them down."
