Saturday, July 12, 2014

There Are Days

I'm exceedingly glad that my parents sold the majority of the herd. I miss the cows don't get me wrong. Lakota left before the main herd, as did Mandy, Blitz and many of my beloved other show girls. Favored pets had died calving, of weird diseases, and just plain bizarre circumstances over the many years. Days like yesterday I long for the peaceful monotony of the 2x, 4 hours of barn chores that dictated my life for so very many years. 



But then I read stories like this one. At which point my brain goes WTF is wrong with our world?!?! Have we really become so removed for reality that we don't know dinosaurs are EXTINCT?!?! You have got to be kidding me! Is this why people buy into the PeTA and HSUS bull pucks? If you see it it must be true. Forget the triceratops has been extinct for how many millions of years. 


This is why farmers have to fight to make their practices seem legitimate. 

Dehorning calves for their well being as well as the safety of farm hands. 

Removing calves from aggressive mother cows.

 AI so you don't have to keep dangerous bulls around your family and children.


People truly have no idea about the reality of the world they live in. They sit in their little Manhattan apartments go about their day and see something they decide looks awful. Never have they been kicked, stomped, or bit by a horse or cow (yes cows do bite and it HURTS). They've never sat up night after night waiting for the gift of a healthy new calf, only to have it finally come, at 1 am, breach, with no one to help, fight for an hour to help the poor dam deliver it, fight to get it to take air into its lungs, only to have it die in their hands. This is the farmers reality. Broken fingers from fixing rusted machines and stalls. Broken noses from a cow slamming herself into your face. Bruised and battered ribs courtesy of a young heifer learning the ropes in the milking barn.


But all of this seems so cruel to them. Perhaps they have a little kitty cat, she's their child or maybe they have a chia pet that they have to be stringent in the care of. They would never do the things we do, so how dare we. We, who have been brought up loving our stock and make it our life's work. We the farmer who put 40 hours by Tuesday noon and then add in another 72, and don't mind the doing of it. The people who feed the nation and the world and take hell for doing it, and its people like this who are why. All I can say is Lord help us all if this is how far removed from the real world society really is, because we are surely doomed.



3 comments:

jan said...

Excellent post, Liz. You have inherited your mother's writing skills.

It is sad that so many decisions are made by people who can't keep a Chia pet alive but think they know all about animal husbandry.

I'm working on a post on the American Farmer. I think the video would make a good ending. Thanks for the idea.

ellie k said...

Amen, you are so right, most people have no idea what it takes to put food on there table. Farmers feed the world, our daughter and son in law are farmers and put many 16 or 18 hour days. Work with Boy Scouts, are raising two children attend church and help the small town we live in when ever they can. I thank the farmers of America and love them.

Paintsmh said...

Jan, Thank you. I was very irritated when I wrote it. Had to proof read it several times before I was comfortable posting it, but I'm glad I did.

Ellie, thank you :)