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.
1 comment:
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.
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