Teamwork

When I was a little girl, my grandfather occasionally started up his D-14 Allis Chalmers to gather the brown jersey cows from the luscious green pasture and lead them to the big red barn for milking. Most of the time the ladies would come home with the "HERE BOSS!" that Grandpa would yell from the north door of the barn, but the absolute favorite for us kids was when that orange tractor started up and headed around the south side of the house down the dirt road which led to the pasture gate. We would throw our shoes on as fast as we could to chase him down before he got too far away from us. Of course if he made it around the bend past the chokecherry bushes, we could always cut through the woods on the "shortcut" path which went by a very scary abandoned shed which I always believed was haunted. Once on the other side, we knew we could catch him before he entered through the electric fence gate. From the gate it was down down down to the bottom of the hill near the lake. At the bottom of the bank of the hill, we would hang a sharp right and drive past the old worn out corn crib and machinery graveyard and on past the north side of the barn which was above us on that hill. We would keep traveling east until we saw some brown backs with the occasional black face and 16 sets of big brown eyes peering at us from afar. I don't know why, but the cows always started for "home" when the tractor was near. Some of my favorite memories of childhood include the wind blowing through my hair while sitting on an orange fender with
a great man behind the wheel. He was the kind of man who would turn the heater on in the old blue Chevy while bringing home 3 freezing kids from swimming lessons at Loghaven on a 90 degree day, even though he was drenched with sweat. I don't believe Grandpa always used the tractor to gather the bossy, but I think he knew he would have some extra special teamwork from three eager kids if the old Allis was fired up.

I was reminded of my childhood fun yesterday as my husband and one of my daughters rode together on our 686 International gathering straw bales for easy loading onto the trailer to bring them back home. I was extremely nervous when she climbed up on the fender to ride on the red tractor with her daddy. I was scared she would fall off that fender and end up under that rear tire. As I watched with anticipation and anxiety, I recalled always being extremely careful when in the same situation when I was her age. So, I drove the skidsteer and stacked together bales and they made memories together much like I did 25 or so years ago. Each time we passed each other I had a big wave and smile from a blond girl looking so big and proud with her daddy beside her with the same look on his face. It doesn't get much better than that.