TUMC (A Short Story)

I thought I would write a Halloween short story for today, but kind of ended up going in a different direction, a nightmarish version of the present. This is a work of fiction with no relation to my "udder" blog, The Udder Side. 

The Udder Milk Corporation

I don't remember when it started, but it seemed like everyone was using it. The Udder Milk was the brand that everybody drank, put in their coffee, and cooked with. The commercials I remember vividly between cartoons when I was a kid. They had a sing song nursery rhyme appeal, "Don't forget your Udder Milk, Udder Milk, Udder Milk. Be sure and drink your Udder Milk for a fine day." I think one of the fast food restaurants started carrying it and that's how it caught on. That's how they get you, they get you as kids. "It is easier to teach a young person than change an old one," is a quote from Britt Pollman, an influential food blogger/critic and maybe the Ellsworth Toohey of his day, but I'll get back to him later.

Soon after the initial wave of The Udder Milk the second wave came. There was The Udder Milk Ice Cream and The Udder Milk Cheese, and all kinds of products. The final wave was the rest of the food spectrum with The Udder Milk Meat and The Udder Milk Microwave Meals and such. Britt Pollman was the one that challenged the government to make The Udder Milk products staples of the school lunches. Arguing that it was in the best interest for the health of the nation, as well as the environment, he used his bully pull pit of editorials, blog posts, and speaking engagements to petition the USDA to make the change for a better world. Eventually, he turned first the public and then government officials onto the idea. 

If I knew then what I know now I would be scared to death of that man. Others were at the time, and they earned the nickname "The Natural Nuts." The Nuts were actually the people that were behind Pollman in his previous endeavors, but they thought this was too far and some protested, but the media was behind Pollman and drowned them out. Their worst fears came true when the federal government took control of The Udder Milk Cooperation and began distributing the products to the people needing food subsidies and forcing it on restaurants to be a part of a healthy menu. The Nuts were far from crazy.

I would have never known any of this had I not been assigned the case of the murder of Dr. Heif R. Sun, a pediatrician and researcher. As one of the homicide detectives at the NYPD I, Bob Thorn, was the man for the job. Who knew when I left my cubicle that day I would be headed down the rabbit hole?

The crime scene was no different than the hundreds I'd worked before. Dr. Sun had taken a .45 through the chest, bled out on the floor, and died. He had been working alone at his office, researching what I now know to be his greatest work, when his tragic end came. We could find nothing missing from the office or from his person. He still had his wallet with cash inside and his top tier smart phone. I had the crime scene unit check for prints and anything else they could find and I took his laptop back to the station for inspection.

The laptop itself was a dead end, however when I used it to access a cloud account I found the motherload. Dr. Sun had been studying a terrible phenomena that had begun in the last two generations. Kids started getting broken bones, their hormones became unregulated causing the obvious problems plus those associated the thyroid, which helps to regulate your body. It was happening for every adult, too.That's what brought on the pills according to his research. Vitality in a bottle was how they was marketed. Long life through science. Everyone took a daily dosage of vitality pills to be healthy and those that didn't paid the price. The connection Dr. Sun had found with the pills was still out of reach for me.

There was another folder on his cloud file that I couldn't decipher so I Skyped a professor friend of mine, Sole Roth, to see what he could make of it. I watched his eyes grow wide with awe as he scanned the folder. "I don't believe it," he murmured.

"What is it?" At the time I believed it would be the key to help me solve the murder, but I had no idea of the further implications.

Roth's eyes moved left to right and back again as he continued reading. "I can't be sure," he stammered and wiped the forming sweat off his forehead with the back of his shirt sleeve. "You have to go to The Udder Milk factory outside town. Now! Wait-" and I saw him clicking his mouse and he cursed the screen. "Gone! The files are gone. Someone has erased them. You have to go investigate before it is too late, Bob."

Before I could get up one of the CSI guys came and told me they found a match on a print from Dr. Sun's crime scene. The perp was Jack Deeds, a two time loser with a long line of offenses including assault and a murder rap he got off on a technicality. A beat cop alerted them that he had been spotted going in a local dive bar. I made sure I had my department issued piece and headed for the door.

I recognized the bar when it came into view. Alcohol wasn't the only thing you could get inside, we had busted it more than once for selling non government approved food items. The black market existed in full for food if you had the cash. Deeds sat at the bar engrossed in his glass of brown, murky liquid. I pulled my gun and badge out and called, "Jack Deeds. I'm Detective Bob Thorn, NYPD. I need to talk to you."

He tried to run. I like it when they do that. Normally.

I took a step to stop him when I was tripped by a big guy at the closest table. "I don't like cops," the fat drunk told me and laughed.

My first inclination was to bash his bald head with the side of my firearm, but the thought of Deeds getting away and another assault mark on my record deterred me. I jumped the bar counter following the commotion Deeds made and went out the back door after him. It opened to an alley with a chain link fence on the backside that Deeds was trying desperately to climb. His clumsiness allowed me to claim the distance between us and I grabbed his ankle and slung him to the ground. 

Holding the gun on him squarely I asked, "Why did you shoot Dr. Sun?"

Deeds rubbed his left shoulder and squirmed back against the brick wall of one of the surrounding buildings. He didn't answer.

I pushed closer. "Did someone pay you to kill him?"

"Britt Pollman," he sneered, "but you'll never prove it."

My cellphone rang. "Yeah?" I answered still holding the gun steady. It was the chief. The only reason the chief called was for bad news. And usually it was very bad for you if he was calling.

"Bob, we just got a call in about your friend, Sole Roth. He's been found dead outside his apartment building."

That's when it sank in that I was on to something big. It doesn't matter how big the fish is you've got on the line if you can't keep it there. I knew I had nothing to tell the chief. Yet. If Sole had been murdered for what he found out on that cloud folder I could only assume I would be next. Then I knew I had to do what he told me. I had to go to The Udder Milk factory.

"Chief, I'm leaving Jack Deeds handcuffed in an alley at 31st and Trenton. I have a lead that can't wait." I didn't wait for his reply, I simply hung up. Then I noticed Deeds slumped to the ground. I kicked him slightly in the ribs and he didn't move. Foam started running down the side of his mouth. I checked his pulse and found none. He'd rather die than talk. This fish was gone.

It took fifty-five minutes to get through afternoon traffic and out of town. Tall buildings to small apartments and communities to barren land, and I realized I'd never paid much attention to life outside the city. I gazed down at the bottle of vitality pills I kept in the cup holder. What had Dr. Sun and Sole figured out that was worth killing them? I was due my next round of pills, but I didn't take them and put my eyes back to the road.

I parked the cruiser on the side of the road and hid in the bushes. Large tractor trailer trucks with the Udder Milk logo emblazoned on the side were going in out and out of the factory. Timing myself, I ran to one as it slowed at a yield sign, and with the cover of the fading sun I managed to catch hold of a bar on the underside of one trailer and pull myself up. I let out a long breath at my accomplishment and held on for dear life as the truck entered the factory gates.

It pulled around to the far side of the facility and backed up to a truck dock. I scampered down and crouched low to the shadows, making my way to a doorway. Stairs led me up and inside a maze of hallways and doors. Footsteps echoed behind a door beside me and I froze with nowhere to hide without making a sound. I pressed myself into a doorway as a man exited a room and stared at a tablet as he went the other way. I finally let out a breath when he stepped inside an elevator and the doors closed. 

Eventually I found way to an office overlooking the factory floor. The puzzle pieces snapped together in my mind slowly as I saw what was happening. The trucks were unloading the harvest to bins. The bins emptied onto long conveyor belts to be transformed into mush and juice. All was being packaged into The Udder Milk cartons and packaging. There was no milk. There was no meat. There were only beans. Beans. Beans. And beans.

"The Udder Milk is soy!" I cried.

Epilogue:

I videoed the factory and uploaded it to YouTube.

It went viral within hours.

I was never able to find the evidence to connect the murders back to Britt Pullman, but he fell from grace as the masses learned the truth of how they had been duped. People were dumping all the soy products of The Udder Milk Corporation in the streets and setting them on fire. The government did an about face and began importing real milk and meat products until a home grown industry could be rebuilt. A real healthy diet came back for the first time in generations. The vitality pills, which were only needed to counteract the bad effects of the soy diet, were discarded.

As for me, I never knew real chocolate milk and cheeseburgers could taste so good.

Thanks for reading my dairy take on Soylent Green. If you enjoyed this then please check out my book, No Signal.

No Signal Coming Soon

After publishing my Counting Cows picture book last year I decided I'd really like to do write another. While I have plans for another picture book I actually ended up writing a detective story first.

No Signal is about a private investigator operating in a rural county. John Steele is hired to find the truth about the death of a dairy farmer. Nothing is too easy for him as he searches for clues and a good cell phone signal.

I put up a bit of an early draft on the Udder Side blog a few weeks ago. Right now I'm finishing up some of the formatting of the book and hopefully that won't take long to complete. I plan to publish it for free on Smashwords and Amazon soon.

HH Milk

Jane walked down the stairs dressed and ready for breakfast. Her husband George sat at the kitchen table with his coffee, toast, and a tablet in his hand reading the paper. He wore his blue suit, but he had yet to put on his coat and tie. The morning news anchors' voices babbled on from the flat screen television on the wall.

Jane slid her hand across his shoulders as she passed. "Morning, dear."

"Good morning," he told her absently without looking up from his tablet.

Jane removed bowls and cups from the smooth white cabinets and placed them on the counter. Meanwhile a commercial came on the TV. A happy little girl and her mother were shopping at the grocery store. "Can I get the milk, mom?" the little girl asked.

"Of course," her mother replied. "Make sure you get one with a HH on it."

The girl smiled brightly back to her. "Yes, Mommy. I don't want the other kind."

The girl placed a container of milk in the shopping cart as the camera zoomed on a closeup of the red and black HH that was prominently placed on the label. The mom's voice said, "Real mom's choose milk from cows milked with human hands."

Jane opened the refrigerator door and stared inside. She frowned slightly and scrunched her eyes. "I thought you picked up some milk yesterday."

George sat his coffee cup down and replied, "They didn't have any with HH logo on it at the store so I didn't get any."

"What?" she asked while now leaning down slightly and moving things around in the frig.

He sighed. "You, know. Like on the commercial. HH. Human hands milk. I didn't want to support the mega farms that use robots to milk their cows." George looked up from his tablet. "I want our family to drink milk that came from cows that were milked by human hands." He swiped the tablet screen with his finger. "This is different than the maid. This is food. It's different."

Jane rolled her eyes and let out her own sigh as she closed the refrigerator door. "I thought you were going to stop at the electronic filling station when you charged your car and get some milk. Don't they have the organic milk there that you like?"

"They do, but it isn't local milk anymore," he explained.

Jane leaned back on the synthetic plastic counter and stared at him. "How can it not be local anymore? The farm that they get their milk from comes from less than twenty miles away."

George shook his head slightly. "It is local like that," he said while putting his fingers up and made quotations marks in the air when he said local. "They're just not certified local."

"Certified local?" She was doing her best not to get upset, but her patience was waning.

He nodded gently. "Certified local prevents other farmers from infringing on the local movement. To be certified you have to be a sixth generation farmer on the same land and be of East European or Native American blood. Of course there are some exemptions. The farm you were talking about, well, the current farmer's father married a girl from the west coast and so unfortunately...." His voice trailed off and he shook his shoulders as if that's the way it was.

Jane put away the bowls, cups, and cereal she had gotten out and closed the cabinet doors a little harder than necessary. She sat down at the table opposite George. He looked away from the talking heads on the TV and back to her. "I only want the kids to have what's good for them. I worry," he said earnestly.

"Well, I worry, too," she retorted. "I worry they won't get the milk they need. I worry about getting osteoporosis like my grandmother. I worry you don't eat healthy enough, either." She let that set with him a moment like waiting for a pot of soup to boil. She leaned forward on the table and said, "About two years ago I took the kids that local dairy farm so they could see a real farm with real animals. That west coast woman you referred to started doing farm tours for the community."

George took off his glasses and rubbed the lens on a napkin. "I remember that. Judy came back and thought about going to vet school for a while."

"Right. I talked to that woman and she told me lots about milk. She told me how milk is probably the most regulated food product on the market. She said their milk was tested for antibiotics at the farm before it was picked up and then again at the processing plant before it was unloaded from the milk trucks. I asked her is she thought any milk was better than another."

He finished rubbing his glasses and slid them back on his face. "And?"

"She said milk is milk. She said buy what makes you happy and enjoy it. Milk is safe."

George was about to reply when their teenage daughter and young son walked in the kitchen. The girl yawned and the boy rubbed his eyes and asked, "What's for breakfast, Mom?"

Jane smiled broadly. "Daddy's taking us out to eat for breakfast! He forgot the milk."

TSA, The Farmer, and The Pocket Knife

I saw on the news this morning where the TSA was going to start allowing pocket knives back on planes for the first time since 911. This brings to mind a funny story of mine from a few years ago.

My wife and I were going to visit her brothers in New York City for the first time. One moved there to work in the movie/tv business and the other is a math professor. We fully intended to get to the airport in plenty of time...but my wife has never been known for being prompt. The check-in line was long and by the time we got all the way to check our luggage we were told we would have to let all of it be carry on.

Now I know that doesn't sound like a problem at first, but we didn't pack accordingly. My wife had all of her shampoo and other "girlie stuff" in bigger than the tiny bottles that were allowed as carry on. Then there was my problem. The knife.

Town knife

This is my town knife. Yes, I said town knife, meaning I have a farm knife, and plenty of other ones. This isn't as crazy as you might think. I do many dirty chores, to say the least, with my farm knife and I don't want to use it to cut up an apple, for instance.

The knife was in the bag meant to be checked. It was a Christmas gift and I had no plan of chucking it in the trash as my wife did with her stuff so we could race down the hallway to board the plane. A security officer told me to go to a travel agent who might be able to help. For the low price of $10 the travel agent put my town knife in a sealed envelope in her desk until I came back to claim it. Big sigh of relief.

I made the dash back down the hallway to catch up with my wife who had already been informed our plane was closed for boarding. There was actually no need to discard anything because we could check the luggage for a later flight. Arggh!

We decided to just do carry on and let it be. NYC was great, thanks to my brother-in-laws, even if I kept checking my empty pocket most of the time we were there. Will I bring a knife on a plane under the new TSA rules? I probably will not tempt fate and leave my good friend at home and instead work on getting my wife to the airport on time!

If You Give A Dairy Farmer Some Ice Cream....

If you give a dairy farmer some ice cream...

He'll probably think about milking cows.

And if he thinks about milking cows then he'll probably think about feeding cows.

If he thinks about feeding cows then he'll probably think about harvesting.

Harvesting makes him think about tractors.

When he's riding his tractor he might see his calves. 

That will remind him it is time to feed again.

Feeding baby calves will probably remind him of seeing them being born.

Thinking about cows and baby calves will remind him 

it is time run the cows up and milk again.

And of course, if a dairy farmer thinks about milking he just might think about 

milk being turned into ice cream again.

Ackbar Comes Home

Justice came late or Christmas came early depending on your perspective, but Ackbar has finally come home. Moving Ackbar, the suspicious heifer, to the field she needs to be in has been on our to do list, but has kept sliding down further and further until today. Working with her has been a real chore and even outside help (in the form of a hitman!) has not helped until now.

We had been feeding her and her cohorts in an open corral for weeks waiting on her to calm down. Today we locked her in the corral and loaded her on to the trailer.



Oh, happy day!

Ackbar and her pals are now where they belong and this story is finally over!

If a Dairy Farmer Won the Power Ball

Yes, I did buy one Power Ball ticket. Do I have faith that I will be the winner? Of course! Half the fun of the ticket for me is to enjoy the time daydreaming about what I would do with the winnings. Today I thought about how I would use it to improve our dairy farm. So after taxes, charitable donations, and helping friends and family members out, this would be what I might do with it.

• New manure spreader and tractor. We could use one, trust me and I think that would be awesome to tell the morning show's reporter when they came out to interview me.
• Hay, hay, and more hay. The drought we endured this summer left us with a very lackluster crop.
• An iPhone. I don't want one because I want to be an Applefanboy, but I read in a dairy magazine about a new app and attachment that will let users check the somatic cell count of milk for individual cows. Improving milk quality? I am a fan of that.
• Robot milkers. The fourteen year old boy that resides within me screams that robots are cool. Robot milking units that I have read about seem to be about improving cow comfort and the farmer's time. I think I would definitely want to explore using them.
• Webcams around the maternity area. Wi-fi at the farm is very limited right now, but I would love to extend it and add webcams so we can better monitor our pregnant or postpartum cows.
• Of course there are plenty of repairs that need to be made and these could be attended to.

Short list? Yup, but I'm sure I'll think of more to add to it. What would you do on your farm if you won the lotto?



photo credit: Lisa Brewster via photopin cc

If Cows Ran For President Then.....

With the help of Darrie Carrie and her cow Norma, I've been having much fun on my Udder Side blog writing about dairy cows running for president. I even ran a couple of campaign commercials for them.



My friend Mark enjoyed this one so much he sent me some of his thoughts about a dairy cow administration:

No Bull  -  I cast my write-in vote today for Shirley and Norma!! 

I’m hopeful that everyone will have a steak in the new government.

Do you think they will support free government cheese for all?   Keeps us happy and keeps their sisters employed!

If elected, will they make a big stink about reducing methane emissions?   Or don’t they give a crap?

A lot of candidates are just in it to milk the government for all they can.   Shirley and Norma may have a different perspective.

Hope they are considering a horse for secretary of State.   You know, the administration will need some horse sense.   Already have too many jack----- and elephants!!!!

Beaver for secretary of Interior.  They really do give a d--!

Will Gilmer has also been tying the presidential election to dairy farming with his promotion of #TeamDairy. I think it is easy to see he is a big backer of the pro-dairy platform.

What do you think about the dairy platform or a dairy cow for president?

The Farmer In Concert

Pupils strained against the darkness as all eyes fixated on the door. Nervous hooves crunching straw made the only sound. Their patience was finally rewarded with the sudden opening of the door and the brilliance of the lights flashing down on them.  The calf barn erupted with moos for milk!

The Farmer smiled and gave a big thumbs up to the rows of calves. Their chanting continued as he prepared his instruments of powdered milk, water, grain, and milk buckets. The powder splashing the bottom of the bucket began his song. Warm water spraying and mixing with the milk was an opening solo for the hungry calves. He hung two buckets up for the calves in the first row and they were at once speechless and began drinking.

The Farmer worked in the rhythm of the song with the grain in his scoop rattling into each trough like maracas punctuating the beat. Verse after verse it continued until every calf had been fed. He finished to a standing ovation.

The Farmer performs twice daily and 365 days a year exclusively in the calf barn.

Once Upon a Time a Cow....

If you've never actually tasted the grass on the other side then maybe you have not really had an adventure. Tuesday morning one of our dry cows decided to try the grass on the other side herself. The dry cows are our pregnant cows that are within sixty days of calving and not being milked.

 
 222 decided she would step over the fence where a tree had fallen on it and walk into the hay field. She was like Cinderella having a wonderful time munching on hay until the clock struck "time-to-eat-breakfast-at-the-barn" which is usually around 5:00 am for them. While she was unable to find her way back to the hole in the fence she was able to walk around to the other side and, like Dorothy, follow the paved road to the barn.

Now all of this adventuring really made her hungry so she decided to stop for a bite to eat at our grain bin. With the obvious help of her fairy god-cow she was able to flip the switch that turned on a grain auger and let it run until it kicked the breaker off. Yes, she did.

She lay there in a slumber like Sleeping Beauty until we arrived at work. Luckily no one had to give her true love's kiss for her to wake up. She heard us coming, woke up, and we let her in through a gate to go back in with the rest of the dry cows who were ready for their breakfast.

Now that the fence has been repaired I think you could say that this story finally has a happy ending for farmer and cow.

Hitman For Ackbar

So I hired a hitman...... umm...this probably bears a good explanation.

After feeding Ackbar the suspicious heifer and her associates for two weeks in the corral we had still made little progress in getting them calmed down enough that we could load and move them. Then she left. I mean on her own. Ackbar jumped the fence and got in with the neighbor's cattle.

Okay, what sounded bad ended up being a little better when we found out he had a corral, too. The new plan was to wait for Ackbar to get used to the new cows and go in to eat with them in their corral. A week and a half later our neighbor called to say that Ackbar refused to go in his corral and was jumping back and forth over his fences. Please come and get your cow was the main part of his message. At this point we felt we were running out of options on ever getting her home. We couldn't catch her no matter how we tried. We needed help.

For those of you who have been waiting patiently, we're now to the hitman part.

So, I know a guy that knows a guy. Isn't that how the story is supposed to go? Actually in this case I know a girl that knows a guy, but you get the idea. The guy is a professional, or maybe I should say he has professionally tranquilized animals before. The new plan was for him to shoot her with a tranquilizer dart and then we could load her up and take her back home. The outcome of this plan ended up being best summarized by a refigerator magnet I saw once: Man plans, God laughs.

Ackbar, who seemed to have some sort of Spidey-sense to keep her away from danger, always managed to stay just out of range of the tranquilizer gun. She eventually jumped the fence and wandered around our neighbor's farm from one side to the other with us following by truck or on foot.

Eventually, and I do say eventually, the pendulum of luck swung mostly back to us. Ackbar walked into the corner of the fences and hopped back over into our field. No tranquilizer needed today.

We moved some new calves into the field with Ackbar and her cohorts and it has definitely helped. She has calmed down enough that we were actually able to touch her (really!) while she ate without her flinching and running away. Hopefully, and I do have hope again, we'll be able to move her next week to the field with heifers her age and size.

Handy Hints for Hoard's

In every issue of Hoard's Dairyman they have a section labeled Handy Hints. The hints are sent in by the readers and they demonstrate some neat idea they had and then implemented on their farm. The other day on Twitter I mentioned to Hoard's that I thought one of the current hints was not up to their usual high standards. Eventually I was challenged to send in a hint of my own.

I gave this some thought and realized that not all of the ideas we've had and tried on our farm have always turned out as well as we had hoped.

Hair Dryers in the Milking Parlor

Cows, like many other females spend a lot of time grooming, and this may cause them to be late to work, or in their case late for one of their milkings. Why not install beauty salon hair dryers in the parlor and then they would have no reason to be late? Two birds with one stone, right?

Wrong. The cows actually ended up primping more in the parlor and took too long to be milked. The dryers also were not as industrially strong as advertised and had a very short life span.

Starbucks For the Cows

Sometimes you just need a pick-me-up and a little bit of caffeine might go a long ways. We thought some caffeine might stimulate the cows to produce more milk so we opened a tab for them at the local Starbucks coffee house. 

The results were mixed as far as milk production goes and we would love to have Dr. Sheila McGuirk, who writes a column in the magazine, to weigh in on it. We ended stopping this particular project due to the expanding cost of the tab the cows were leaving us. We could not afford it anymore.

Dry Erase Boards

We have found that having dry erase boards around on the farm are very handy. This particular one is kept were the cows eat silage and has due dates on it for our pregnant cows. When those cows are eating you can easily reference the board and take any action required. 

We also have two in our calf barn to keep track of which calf is in each stable and to leave notes for the next feeding. 

Very handy indeed for any size dairy farm and makes it my response to the challenge.

Ackbar, the Suspicious Heifer

See the heifer on the right? I'm naming her Ackbar after Admiral Ackbar from The Return of the Jedi Star Wars movie.



She was definitely not walking into a trap like that one. We were trying to move this group of eleven heifers to another field. The heifers are sorted by age and size and this group was ready to join another.

We sat up a small corral and moved a feed box into it to give them grain and a good reason to go in on their own. Once inside we could ease them into the waiting cattle trailer.

Now this went well for the for the first two trips with the trailer.

But Ackbar and her cohorts decided they would not go into the corral. We went back yesterday and fed them, but they were still not convinced that they should do as we asked. Today we found them lounging in the shade. No matter what sweet words I used to call them forward they refused to move out into the sun. 

We may not have the power of the force, but we do have time and patience. A few more days of feeding in the corral and I think we will win them over to our side.

(Story continues: Hitman For Ackbar and Ackbar Comes Home)

Counting Cows (Book)

I had so much fun with my Counting Cows book I made last month I decided to make a full ebook out of it. You can now download it from Smashwords for free in many different formats.

It is also available on Amazon for 99 cents. Hopefully Amazon will meet the Smashwords price sometime and also list it for free. The Amazon Kindle version is formatted better than the other, but the content is the same on both!

If you liked it (or not!) please leave a review from which ever place you downloaded it from.

The Case of the Missing Calves

I've written before about how farmers wear many hats. The other day I got to pretend that I was wearing a detective's hat.

It had been a long hot day. The kind where the heat hits you like a ton of bricks when you walk outside. The wind was as dead as a body at the county morgue. I had worked a case all day long and had nothing to show for it except a sweat stained shirt and expenses. Like I said, it had been a long, hot day and I was glad for it to be over. Except it wasn't, but I didn't know that yet.


I was at home and ready for the shower I'd needed since four o'clock this morning when the phone rang. I could let it ring, I wanted to let it ring, but my gut told me to answer, and he's the only one who's never done me wrong. Tommy was the one calling. Now Tommy was a neighbor, a guy you could count on when your chips were down, but the reason of this call was as unexpected as a sucker punch to the stomach. He had seen some of my calves where they didn't belong, or more specifically out in a corn field behind his house. It was a case I couldn't refuse.


Questions ricocheted in my my mind like bullets off a brick wall. What were the calves doing? Why did they get out? And who did it? What did it? There was only one thing to do: investigate.


Back out into the heat I went with an eye to the ground and ear to the sky listening for the sounds of moos. I scoured the corn field for clues and you didn't have to be a gumshoe like me to find one. The calves had been there alright and they didn't care to hide the fact.

From a distance I could hear a small engine coming down the woody hill towards me. Now I wasn't looking for trouble, I was looking for the calves and I didn't come alone. My best friend was right by my side, holstered in fact, and he only knows how to say the same word six times. Turns out my friend didn't have to do any talking because it was Farmer Paul, the owner of the corn field that was riding on the four wheeler I'd heard. He said the calves had gone back across the hill to my hay field.

I gave him my thanks and drove back around to my side of the hill. The calves were there waiting on me like dummies waiting on a ventriloquist. But I only had one thing to make them do: go back to their field and stay there. 

While I led the calves back into their field my mind raced. I now had the where they had been question answered, but the why still remained. I wiped the sweat from my brow, took a swig from my water flask, and gazed up the hill. Somewhere up there the answers would be found. With the sun sinking fast I knew I had to hurry or all the evidence would soon be out of sight.


By the time I reached the top of the hill my dogs were killing me. I hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary and time was running out. Up ahead I finally saw a clue that my blind grandmother wouldn't miss. Let me tell you, dead men tell no tales, but this dead tree had written me a book.

Everything came together like a twenty-five piece puzzle. A tree fell. Calves walked out. It was an open shut case and that is the kind I like.

The Cody James Boots Giveaway Winner Is....

Okay, I'm ready to announce the winner of my Cody James boots giveway contest. First, I'd like to thank the Boot Barn for asking me to review a pair and for sponsoring the contest. I really enjoy wearing mine and I think anyone that owns a pair will tell you the same.

And now for the part you've all been waiting for. The winner, selected by a random number generator, is 

xxxxxxxxxxxx ! 

I'll be contacting you soon to let you know how to receive your new boots!

Thanks to everyone that entered. If you'd like another opportunity to win a pair of these fine boots then check out Mr. Ryan Goodman's review of his Cody James boots and contest at Agriculture Proud. But if you can't wait then head on over to the Boot Barn and order a pair today.


Update!


The original winner has unfortunately declined. After a new randomly generated drawing I am happy to announce that StateCougFan is the new winner! Congrats!

My Cody James Boots Review and Giveaway

I was pretty excited when the nice folks over at the Boot Barn offered to send me a free pair of their new Cody James line of boots if I would review them and even more excited when they also said I could also give away a pair to one lucky reader in a June Dairy Month contest. I went to the website and eventually decided on the Distressed style of the Cody James boots.

The first thing I noticed when I opened the box was that the boots were exactly like those shown on the website. The stitching looked beautiful and the distressed look was just what I wanted. I tried them on and my next impression was how sturdy and supportive they were. This might be due to the genuine steel shanks and the Goodyear welt. For comparisons sake, I pulled one off and put one of my old boots back on. The wife and kids sure gave me funny looks as I walked around the house with two different boots on. There was a big difference between the two.

After wearing them for a while I can say the Cody James boots are much more form fitting and supportive around the ankle than boots that I have worn in the past. I really like the way my foot slides into place when I put them on. They are very comfortable to wear.


I have also been impressed with the quality of the workmanship and materials. The leather just feels thick and strong, like it will last a long time. I'm rough on boots and shoes in general. I've been wearing these every chance I get to see if they tear up or scuff easily. I've worn them to just about any place I've wanted to and they still look great with jeans or dress pants. I definitely enjoy wearing them.

Now, how would you like to win your own pair of Cody James boots from the Boot Barn and help me celebrate June Dairy Month?

I love ice cream. I know you love ice cream, too. To enter the contest leave a comment below telling me what your favorite flavor of ice cream is. It couldn't be any easier, right? I'll select one random comment to be the winner next Wed (June 27th).

A few rules:
Remember you can only enter once!
You have to be 18 or over.
Boot Barn ships to anywhere in the US and Canada (sorry no PO Boxes)

The fine folks at the Boot Barn have also told me that these boots are very popular and literally everybody (including the cows on my farm!) want a pair. For that reason if the winner's first choice of style/size is not available immediately they will have to wait until more stock becomes available or they can choose a different style.


So leave a comment with your favorite ice cream flavor and you might win your own pair, but if you can't wait, by all means head on over to the Boot Barn and order some now.

Curious George the Cat and The Man in the Farm Hat

 This is George. He was a good little cat and always very curious.

George the cat

Today George decided to go exploring. George loved to go exploring. He saw a silage wagon and climbed inside to look around.  George was having fun walking on the soft silage until he heard the man in the farm hat start the tractor to unload the silage. Poor George was scared and wanted to find a way out, but he could not remember how he got into the wagon. 

Luckily for George, the man in the farm hat saw the little cat and turned off the tractor. He went to the front of the wagon and called for George. The curious cat was glad to hear the man in the farm hat's voice and quickly came to him.

George climbed into the man in the farm hat's hands and jumped onto the ground. He was glad to be where it was safe. The man in the farm hat was glad George was safe as well and hoped the curious cat would stay out of trouble for at least a little while.

Dairy Farmers (Can) Count

While milk and dairy products are important for June Dairy Month, it may also be a time to shed a little light on how dairy farmers count.  SUDIA and Dairy Farming Today are a great source of dairy farmer facts. For instance 98% of the over 51,000 U.S. dairy farms are owned by families or individuals. One dollar of milk sold from a farmer creates $3 in economic activity. In Tennessee the dairy industry had 500 million dollars worth of economic activity in 2011 and it is the top agriculture industry in eleven other states. Nationwide there are 900,000 jobs supported by farmers milking cows.

Counting Cows

So do dairy farmers count? While I might be a little biased, I think they do. The next question is can dairy farmers count? I'll let you judge for yourself by this book I made called Counting Cows. It is a simple picture counting book you can read right here or even download a free copy to put on your computer, phone, tablet, etc and share the gift of reading with a young person in your life. Be sure and leave a comment if you like it and I hope you remember the farmers during June Dairy Month.

Counting Cows

Beauty in the War on Thistles

Perhaps there are moments of beauty in the middle of a war. War in this instance may be a bit too strong of a word, but I have been engaged in combat in the Great Thistle Battle of '12. Through the misty haze of 2,4-D I spotted this and couldn't help but snatch a photo. And in a moment of weakness I gave this bee protected weed a pass.

Bee and the Thistle

Thistle Monster

They say it is hard to calm down after fighting a long fight and perhaps that was true of me last night.  As I thought of how the thistles would slowly lean over, wither, and die I fell asleep and began to dream. The drooping, curling limbs became snakes in a nightmare that I had to slash at and kill again.


Maybe the good news is that others are on the battlefront waging the good, and perhaps uphill, fight against the thistle to keep pastures and fence rows clean. You can read reports from Sgt. Goodman and Lt. Bussard on their exploits against this prickly problem.

And don't forget to look for beauty in creation even when or where you don't expect it.