Throughout my life, I have always craved the acceptance and approval of leadership figures. Whether it be teachers, coaches, bosses, or most importantly, my parents, I have always wanted approval from them. I’ve wanted the approval of a good job, the knowledge that I worked hard, and that I’m dedicated to making them proud. Even though I may not follow those guidelines at all times, whenever I let them down, I feel immense guilt and frustration at myself for not doing better. Because of this, if I fail, I am dedicated to doing a better job that next time. An example of this was last year.
I woke up at 7 am in my soft bed with light peaking through the window, shining brightly onto my face. It’s Christmas break and I’m ecstatic at the fact that I don’t have to get dressed quickly to go to school. I heavily sigh and throw my sheets to the side. I hear the vacuum cleaner running downstairs and I know I’m in for a harsh morning. I lurch out of bed, slowly climb into my sweatpants and sweatshirt then quietly creep downstairs. I get down to the first floor and my mother spots me, then quickly orders me to put away the dishes stacked up from last night’s dinner. I mumbled a sleepy “okay” and proceeded to fill a cup of coffee, completely ignoring what my mother told me. Once I am finished mixing a normal sized black coffee with a few drops of milk, and a small spoonful of sugar, I head over to the couch adjacent to the kitchen. I plop myself down on the couch, and down comes Dylan from his mansion of a room upstairs. He fixes himself a straight black cup of coffee and sits himself down on the opposite corner of the couch. He sighs the same heavy sigh I did earlier as he was also told to put away the dishes from my mother. We both sip on our coffee and he comments that I need to do the chores this morning. I instantly wake up from my sleepy daze into a increasingly angry attitude, I think to myself, why should I have to do the chores this morning? I did them last weekend and so did he, but neither of us remembered who did the chores last. Because of this, I grew angry that I had to do the chores and not him. We quickly got into a yelling match about who needed to do the chores, ending with both of us storming off angrily to separate parts of the house.
The chores still had not been done. It was a freezing, windy, and snowy morning where the animals needed to have hay to keep warm. Even though both of us knew that the animals needed to be taken care of, neither of us wanted to go out into the biting cold for over an hour and drop down thirteen, thirty plus pound square bales from the loft, then haul five to one chute, and five to another and cut the twine before dropping them through the chute into the basement where the cows were located. Not only that, but we also had to haul three of those thirty pound plus bales one hundred yards to the goat shed where we dropped and spread one of those bales to the goats. After that, we would haul the other two bales another fifty yards to the horse paddock where we would again spread the bales inside their shed. It’s not over yet though, we then need to make sure all of the waters are full, and free of ice so that the animals can drink from them. After equipping ourselves with a sledgehammer and shovel/pitchfork we would smash the four inch thick ice that accumulated the night before then fish the ice out with the shovel/pitchfork. All the while the biting cold is making its way through our gloves, jacket, and boots deep into our skin. Think we have done enough? You thought wrong. The waters still need to be filled, a task that could last well over an hour depending on how much the water was filled the night before. After filling all of the waters, which would be at least thirty minutes, the chores for the barn itself is over. Next up we make our way back up to the house in which we don’t go inside quite yet. After walking to the house we make a slight right and head toward the wood boiler. Depending on how well, and how much the person who filled it last night did, we would either simply fill the wood boiler with heavy logs, or we would semi-fill it because the fire was not high enough, or we would have to fully restart the boiler. After finishing this task, we are finally finished with the chores for the morning or evening, only to do it all over again that night or the next morning.
But did we want to do that at the now 9 am in the morning? Hell no. After sulking around the house and exchanging angry remarks at each other every few minutes, it was now one in the afternoon and the chores still had not been done. One hour later and we hear a crash and VERY angry yelling coming from the front door. My dad has come home and noticed that the cows had gotten out. Once they got out, one of the dogs had chased them which resulted in them attempting to run away. The semi-peaceful morning had turned disastrous as one of the mother cows had tried to hop over a metal fence to our roping ring, this attempt was unsuccessful and resulted in the cow getting her leg caught in the part of the fence that linked it to another. It was not a catch that held the one-ton animal nicely though. Because of a ring that went into one of the links, part of the cow’s ankle was literally gouged down to the bone. The muscle that was supposed to be covering the bone was flapped off to the side. Blood had come out in large amounts from the ankle and dribbled over the metal fencing, but had quickly frozen due to the extremely low temperatures. Both Dylan and I were dragged out by our father to this horrifying sight. Luckily the cow was still alive. After heavy amounts of yelling, cursing, and blaming, we went to work trying to free the stuck cow. Due to the frozen ground, we could not move the fencing since it was frozen solid into the ground. The cow was so stuck in the link that even we could not free the ankle with our hands. After even heavier amounts of swearing and blaming, we came to the idea of cutting the linking joints that connected the two fences since it was the only way to free the cow. We then gathered bolt cutters and a hammer and went to work cutting the inch thick metal to free the cow. Fifteen minutes later and we had finally cut enough away to free the ankle from the fencing. Though we had freed the cow, she was in shock and would not move. The left ankle had no muscle support around it so there was no way she would even put the leg down, let alone be able to get up.
Now we were attempting to get her to stand up since there was no way we could lift up a one ton animal ourselves. After unsuccessfully pulling at her horns to encourage her to move, my father explained that he would be back and to just wait there and make sure she doesn’t die.
During that fifteen minutes, Dylan and I exchanged even more angry remarks such as “It was your f***ing turn, this is all your f***ing fault!” Needless to say, profanity was in about every single sentence said that day. After we grew tired of yelling the common swears, we turned to more colorful words to express our frustration with each other. We were so destined to hurt the other person that we started throwing ice, hammers, bolt cutters, punches and deeply personal insults. If there was anything at all that would make the other person angry, or feel bad, we would say it.
Our father returned with the tractor and quickly told us his plan to use the forks to lift the cow and attempt to make her stand. We then went to work moving the forks underneath the animal in a way that wouldn’t hurt her. After getting the forks underneath her, we used the tractor to slowly lift the cow to a point in which she could stand. Luckily she could stand, but only barely.
The wound on her ankle was still horrifying and we had done nothing yet to treat it. We decided to move her into the garage where it was a heated area and we could care for her a few days. Once we carried her to the garage on the tractor, Dylan and I quickly went to work cleaning, sterilizing, and wrapping the wound. Once the leg had warmed back up and the frozen blood that was clotting the wound thawed, blood started pouring out. We had to focus and stop the blood before she lost too much, after about three hours we had stopped the blood enough for us to wrap the wound and leave her alone. Dylan and I were exhausted and hoarse from yelling at each other all day, so we went our separate ways and relaxed for a bit, all the while occasionally checking up on the cow and changing the wraps.
Now you might be asking yourself, why was all of this important? And who did I let down?
Later on in the evening, my dad came back from running errands, took a shower, came downstairs and asked Dylan and I to come to the living room. He proceeded to explain that the cow that is in the garage is the best mother cow in the herd, and that she might be pregnant with a calf at that moment. He then explained that there was a strong chance that she might die due to blood loss, and if she survived that, which would be a miracle, she would surely die from not being strong enough to move. Because she was so hurt, if she was put back down with the herd, she would be an outcast as she wouldn’t be able to fight. She would be seen as a liability to the herd so she would be set out to die. Basically, no matter what, she is going to die. He then went into a long lecture of responsibility and taking the initiative to do things even if you don’t want to do them. I found that he was not angry during this lecture, he was just disappointed in us because we did not feed the animals, resulting in them getting out of their pasture in search for food, resulting in this disaster.
He was right, about a week later we had to put her down because she was an outcast of the herd and was unable to eat or drink with them or she would be attacked. I hate letting people down, and this is the reason why. Due to my inability to pick up the slack, a cow that was worth seven thousand or more lost her life. My father is an extremely busy man, he works hard to provide us with the ability to live at a beautiful farm, and go to an amazing school, all the while teaching us how to be men. After that ordeal, I found that there was no reason for me to let him down. Ever since then I have been committed to doing a good job whenever he asks me to do something, and if I ever do a bad job, I always try to make it up by doing an even better job the next time. To me, living on that farm with parents like mine have taught me the most important skills that anybody could have. Work hard, persevere, respect others, and take care of my damn responsibilities.