Skip to main content

Blessed

It is a sunny but cool morning here on the Knolltop. It was 40 when we crossed the road to milk.

Yesterday I interviewed a dairy farmer from Indiana for a story I'm writing for the Michigan-Indiana Holstein News. Marion Hooley, the Indiana Master Breeder award winner, lives in Goshen and is a very chipper gentleman in his 70s. As we visited about his life as a Holstein breeder he told me he is legally blind now. He can't drive anymore and it's very difficult for him to see, but he still does relief milking for his son who now runs the dairy. He told me he drove his Gator through the cow pastures from his house to the farm every day.

He told me he had this thing called a Merlin that magnified small print so he could still read his Holstein magazines. As I listened to him talk about how thankful he was for his Merlin and how wonderful and supportive his wife had been through the years and how much he loved breeding Holstein cattle, I thought about how blessed I was. Not because I have my youth, my eyesight and my health, but because I got to listen to a man who didn't have any of those things and I heard his positive attitude loud and clear. His gratefulness and humility was a great dose of medicine for me.

Okay....off to write another story, this time about Newell Rawlings from Rawlingdale Farms in Armada. He was the Michigan Master Breeder award winner.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Stories like this give me the reporter fever again. I've stopped writing news and feature stories and just do my twice-monthly column, but I may have to reconsider that decision. I loved the interaction with people and how much I learned from them. Gives you a different perspective.

Popular posts from this blog

Counting on the Freedom

It was a situation I glossed over.  I didn’t have to deal with it every single day but it was often enough for me to go to my Bible study group and submit it as a prayer request.  They would listen to me and invariably one or two of them would tell me, “You’ve got to take care of that. Get rid of it.” I knew I should, but I didn’t want to face the conflict and I was fearful of the consequences.  Life would not be the same. I would have to find other avenues to fill the void that the resolution would create. So instead of facing it once and for all, I worked around it.  I figured out ways to deal with it. My work was suffering because of it, but I kept making excuses that it would get better over time.  If I just kept feeding the monster, it would be satisfied, and things would work out. But that’s not what happened. I had sleepless nights of worry; I was short-tempered and spent a lot of time wringing my hands and waiting for a better result. Before you start ...

Big bucks spent at Butlerview Sale

Good morning from the Knolltop . It's balmy here! When we went across the road at 4:30 this morning it was 45 out and the temp is climbing...yes it smells and feels like spring and I love it....but I know it won't last. Because no one else on the web has decided to report on it, I will give a tidbit of the Butlerview Parade of Perfection Sale that happened last weekend in Elkhorn Wisconsin. The sale averaged $19,845 on 124 lots and the sale gross was....are you ready.....sit down for this one.....$2,460,800.00! Amazing isn't it? There were buyers from 23 states and Canada and the high seller was Lot 8 at $190,000 purchased by Triple Crown Genetics, Kingsmill Farm & Gene Iager . The next highest consignment was Lot 1 at $155,000 purchased by David Ludwig of Illinois and the third highest was Lot 46 at $96,000 and Mike Garrow & Gerald Todd went home with that bargain. Apparently it was a high intensity sale with well over 800 people in attendance. I just w...

Dairy Christmas Traditions

It's not Christmas without...... Fill in the blank. Traditions are part of what builds a family and Christmas is full of them.  When you open your gifts, the dinner you create, right down to which ornament goes on what side of the tree. It's all a part of holiday traditions.  On the Knolltop, I have managed to carry on a tradition that began in my childhood, on my home farm.  Each Christmas was filled with holiday baking.  My mom and sister would begin baking and end with pretty packages filled with home made goodies to give away to friends and relatives. Among those baked goods were Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls originating from the local church cookbook published in the late 70's. My sister made those one year and we haven't missed a year since.  While the recipe originated to us in 1976, the tattered recipe card is from the late 80s when wrote a copy for myself when I moved out on my own. For 39 years Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls h...