The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
It is official. Winter is dead. Finally!!
Spring arrived for Easter Sunday dinner along with the rest of the family.
The first vase of pussy willows stood among the plates of food on the counter. We threw open the windows as we sat around the dining room table to enjoy the fresh spring air. It was such an uplifting feeling of newness, fresh beginnings and spring traditions.
The first spring tradition on Easter Monday was to start cleaning out the winter bedding pack in the big heifer shed.
Load after load of manure flies past my office window as I work on my article. I’ve only had one interruption. Mark found a small hallow along a tree line that wasn’t quite firm enough to make it through with a front wheel drive tractor and full spreader.
Luckily Mark and the boys had put the duals on the big tractor over the weekend. We pulled the stuck tractor and spreader out with ease.
Since I was already in the field with the big tractor, we hitched up the disk from its winter storage spot in the field and pulled it into the yard for inspection. The warm temperatures have everyone chomping at the bit to be doing something, anything outside.
Even people in the cities are itching to be doing something outside.
Many are flocking to the Minnesota Zoo to view the Farm Baby display. Kids can get up close with baby chicks, calves, piglets, lambs and other small cute farm animals.
Others are starting to scratch along their flower beds and garden boxes checking for signs of life after this terribly long cold winter.
Small spears of green are popping their heads through the cold ground, unsure if they really should go for it or not.
It feels as if spring makes us all “farmers” in one way or another as we all itch to be outside with new calves or playing in the dirt.
This pseudo sense of ag knowledge has led many city people on memorable spring trips to “tip cows” or hunt for snipes.
I have a college friend from the Polish side of Chicago. He was so surprised to learn I had never tipped a cow before. He knew I had grown up on a beef farm and just assumed all beef kids had tipped a cow or two in their lifetime.
He assured me he had snuck up on an unsuspecting cow asleep in a pasture and pushed her over. He said it was hilarious to see the surprise reaction of the cow when she woke up on her side.
I’m sure it matched the surprised look on my face as he told me his story.
I tried to explain to him it was impossible to tip a sleeping cow. Cows sleep lying down. Horses sleep standing up.
No matter how much I argued with him, he would not listen to reason or facts. He knew he had tipped a cow.
I knew there was no way he could have sneaked up on a group of cows in a pasture. Definitely not a herd of beef cows.
If a group of cows are lying down together, you’ll notice very few of them will face in the same direction. It is part of their instinct for protecting the herd against the many natural predators cows once faced. Everyone has each other’s back.
I guess you could say beef has been what’s for dinner for as long as cattle have existed.
Of course, after working with dairy cattle, I believe Jerry may have been able to sneak up on a dairy cow but there was no way he was going to make her move. Our cows won’t even get up when I crawl through the stalls to reach the feed alley.
Our children have taken many naps alongside their show heifers and cows resting their heads upon the animals’ ribs. They just don’t move.
I have seen four strong men try to pull and push a fresh heifer across the gutter for her first milking. I emphasize the word “try”.
Only when she is ready will she step across the plated gutter, regardless of how much we push, pull, prod, grunt, holler and many other forms of “encouragement”.
This fact only solidifies my second point. Cows are too heavy to tip. A 1,500 pound dairy heifer is a broad, squarely built animal. When she plants her feet, it is as if she has strapped on concrete blocks. She is not going to move. I guess there is a reason the adjective “beefy” exists. You would have more luck tipping over a small car than a cow.
It appears some people in a San Francisco neighborhood have taken to the “urban version of cow tipping”. (This was the headline I heard on the radio.) Four smart cars were discovered tipped up on their rear bumper or over on their hood earlier this month.
Jonathon describes these two person cars as “a glorified cardboard box on wheels.”
Eye witnesses saw 6 – 8 people in hooded sweatshirts approach a parked smart car and proceeded to surround the unsuspecting vehicle. In the wink of an eye they lifted the 1,400 pound car and flipped it like a pancake.
I’m sure there is a YouTube video of this somewhere on the Internet. Have you ever seen a YouTube video of a real cow being tipped over? If it’s not on YouTube, it can’t be done.
I’m sure cow-tipping started out as a two way joke. The city cousins were trying to poke fun at their country cousins about the lack of entertainment in the country.
Taking things in stride, the country cousins were able to convince their smart city cousins they were right.
Cow tipping was one of their favorite night time activities, but in order to sneak up on the cows, they would need to take off their shoes. As the city cousins tip toed toward the cows, the country cousins made a bee line in the opposite direction with the shoes.
The next thing you hear in the darkness is a sudden “UCK” as the city kids step in a fresh cow pie with bare feet. Forget about tipping a cow. They are now focused on “tipping” you over.
I guess you could say the simple country cousins had the last laugh and at least a head start!
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As their four children pursue dairy careers off the family farm, Natalie and Mark are starting a new adventure of milking registered Holsteins just because they like good cows on their farm north of Rice, Minnesota.
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