The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
What is the difference between bad luck and good luck? Just a point of view. It may seem like bad luck to have a late, wet spring and not get a single animal pregnant in the whole month of May. Nine months later when you are in the heart of one of the coldest February’s on record, it seems like a stroke of genius planning. I’m hoping to lose the breeding charts in the months of April and May. I like not having to crawl out from under my warm blankets to go check cows calving in the middle of a long winter’s night. Doubt if this will ever happen again, but it sure has been nice.
I have an incurable belief that things will always work out. I don’t know how they will work out in the end and it may not be as I imagined, but things will always work out. It amazes me every time. I guess it has to do with what angle you view the picture. Do we limit what we see by blinders? Are we only looking at a small piece of the picture and missing the whole view?
Once an elephant came to a small town. People had read and heard about elephants, but no one in town had ever seen one. The whole town turned out to see the elephant. Five blind men also lived in the town and they were also eager to find out about an elephant. Someone suggested that they could go and feel the elephant with their hands to get an idea of what it looked like. The five blind men went to the center of town to touch the elephant.
Later on, they sat down and began discussing their experiences. One blind man, who had touched the trunk of the elephant, said that the elephant must be like a thick tree branch. Another who touched the tail said the elephant probably looked like a snake or a rope. The third man, who touched the leg, said the shape of the elephant must be like a pillar. The fourth man, who touched the ear, said that the elephant must be like a huge fan; while the fifth, who touched the side, said it must be like a wall.
They sat for hours and argued, each one sure his point of view was correct. Obviously, they were all correct from their own point of view, but no one was quite willing to listen to the others. Finally, they decided to go to the wise man of the village and ask him who was correct. The wise man said, “Each of you is correct and each one of you is wrong. Because each one of you had only touched a part of the elephant’s body. Thus you only have a partial view of the animal. If you put your partial views together, you will get an idea of what an elephant looks like.”
The moral of the story is that each one of us sees things exclusively within one’s point of view. We should also try to understand other people’s points of view. This will enable us to get a proper perspective on different situations and events.
What some people may view as bad luck situations, have actually come together to create a perfect time for us on our farm. Al banged up his shoulder last fall. He limped through the harvest months and finally decided he needed to have it fixed. When is a good time for a dairy farmer to be laid up, especially when you have no outside labor force? Most will say there is never a good time. Sometimes you don’t have a choice and yet things fall in place. I think it may be harder to line up when you get to choose your time out of commission. There were so many questions and very few answers. Chores, milking, calving, weather, labor. How were we going to make this all work being short handed?
Again, bad/good things that happened recently and long ago were falling in place. Looking at the calendar, we discovered we didn’t have any cows due to calve in the whole month of February. What was a bad situation last spring was turning out to be a blessing. In November, Austin decided not go out for basketball his senior year as he was bumped up to Regional FFA President. He was going to be busy but more manageable than with basketball practices and games. Sixteen years ago, neighbors dropped off their 14 year old son at our barn door. He loved cows but they were out of the business. We were short handed because I was busy having babies. Eventually Darren was able to dairy on his own for a few years, but it didn’t work out. Over the years he has been our “go to guy” when we were in a pickle. He always milked for us at least once a year when we at the State Fair 4-H Dairy Show. This winter he is able to help us out again with morning milking and chores while Al is laid up. This job is fitting well with his job as a diesel mechanic for a milk hauler.
At the time what seemed to be bad luck has turned around to be good timing. Even Al’s surgery and recovery are providing some different perspectives about our future operation. We realize we can hire somebody outside of the family to work on our farm who cares as much as we do. We see that we should be able to take time off on a regular basis and no one will think we are not committed. Of course, if we didn’t take some time off they might think we need to be committed! The best and yet hardest part about this winter situation is the fact that it is forcing us to look at how we are going to keep dairying and what changes need to be made in order for us to stay healthy and active. Bad luck/good luck, it’s just a point of view.
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As their four children pursue dairy careers off the 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. (Natalie grew up in Stronghurst, the daughter of Becky and the late Larry Dowell.)
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