Eastern Iowa Farmer Fall 2020
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Sunday, March 8<br />
The coronavirus lurked on the sidelines of<br />
in full force in March. As meat packing plants<br />
and restaurants closed and agriculture commodity<br />
chores and raise their families while navigating a challenge<br />
with her husband James, chronicled her young family’s daily<br />
their business and found meaning in the simple pleasures of<br />
journal updates with the <strong>Eastern</strong> <strong>Iowa</strong> <strong>Farmer</strong>. To see her<br />
#1 Show History<br />
The ever looming COVID-19<br />
was becoming more of a thing,<br />
and while it was on the back<br />
burner boiling over, life continued<br />
as it was. On Sunday,<br />
March 8, I loaded up the truck with both<br />
boys and followed our cousin, his daughter<br />
and a trailer full of heifers. We arrived<br />
in Tipton a little after 7 a.m. and found<br />
business as usual on a beautiful sunny<br />
and long-awaited sixty-degree day. We<br />
checked in heifers, washed, dried and fed<br />
them, fit them and prepared them to show,<br />
showed heifers, broke down and washed<br />
heifers and then loaded the four heifers to<br />
make the hour trek home.<br />
We talked to people, we got up in people’s<br />
space, we shook hands, we smiled,<br />
we shared food, we made new friends, and<br />
we coughed, sneezed and acted like we<br />
always had. Knowing what we know now,<br />
I would have cherished that day a little<br />
more. I would have shaken a few more<br />
hands, given my grandparents a hug and<br />
a kiss before they left to go home after<br />
watching their great grandsons show by<br />
themselves for their very first time at the<br />
ages of five and six. And, after a long day,<br />
time change included, we would have gone<br />
out for supper to celebrate the day’s accomplishments.<br />
After all, our five and sixyear-old<br />
boys led around heifers that were<br />
more than 20 times them in weight. They<br />
showed<br />
them well, the heifers never got<br />
away, the boys didn’t get hurt,<br />
they smiled and had fun. And<br />
even though they didn’t win, they<br />
were both second and reserve in<br />
their respective breeds.<br />
While questioning if showing<br />
was right for them and wanting<br />
them to enjoy it as much as<br />
their parents, the icing on the<br />
cake came on the trip home as<br />
we continued the tradition my<br />
grandma started with my brother<br />
and me when we showed<br />
more than 12 years ago. Every<br />
time we showed in Tipton, at<br />
least twice a year, it was tradition<br />
to cap the day off with a<br />
sweet treat from Dairy Queen.<br />
As the boys devoured their ice<br />
cream and fought back yawns
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