The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
11/17/2014 column
This has been one of my harder articles to write. There are so many things to write about and yet there is only one thing to comment on..Giving Thanks. When the kids were younger, we would say grace and mention something good about the day. I wanted them to recognize the little things that make life great. And even when we had a terrible day, there was still always something to be thankful for. So as I try to keep this in mind, I give thanks for the little things in our lives.
I give thanks for the helping hands when the jobs are too many and the hours are too short. I don’t know what we would have done without Katie and Austin these past few weeks as we have brushed, clipped, and washed the cows in the barn for classifying, photo shoots and sales. Katie even stayed home from school one day to clip while Mark and I delivered cattle to Greenbush. (Just a side note to farmers in Houston and Winona Counties, St. Cloud is nowhere near the Canadian border or the edge of the world. Try traveling to Greenbush!)
Michael even came home from college to help with classifying. He had a vested interest in how the day would go on a couple of animals and knew he needed to be home to help. His help paid off when Crystal picked up another point to go EX-94. Her daughter and Michael’s heifer went 88 points as a two-year old. This has been a magical year for Michael and Crystal as they close out their 4-H careers. I just shake my head at the places this 4-H project has taken Michael and how his interest in dairying intensifies with each step. Michael and Crystal are so connected that Michael even created a facebook page for her. I don’t know which is sadder, the fact that 80+ people have friended a cow or that a cow has a facebook page and we don’t!
I give thanks for a bountiful and safe harvest. The freezers are full of venison, a fat heifer named Freezer and produce from the garden. Jonathon had a great hunting weekend with college buddies up north. He provided food for the family and hopefully will take some of it back to college with him. I think my garden is the only ground that wasn’t tilled this fall. The long dry fall weather helped us complete much of the tillage work, but at a cost. The hard ground wore many of the shovels and blades past their prime. Once the machinery shops restock parts, we’ll have to fix things up. For Mark, the sign of a successful harvest is when all of the chairs around the table are filled with loved ones who are safe and sound at home.
I give thanks for the farm. I look around the table at our family and smile with pride and wonderment of how our children have matured over the years. I marvel at how they have grown from little kids in booster seats to all being taller than me. I wish we would take more time to step back and really “watch” our children grow before our eyes as they develop and mature into adults who understand the values of work, integrity, success and failure, teamwork and independence. Lessons they have learned by working with us on the farm. I once read that if you want to keep a child well grounded, you put responsibilities on their shoulders to keep their feet on the ground.
As the kids have grown over the years, so have their responsibilities within the family and on the farm. There are days when they wish they didn’t live on the farm, but in the end they wouldn’t trade any of it, even on the worst of days because there is always something good about everyday to give thanks for.
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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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