My Mom's Parents used to do the job we do now: farm tours for school groups. This happened at their farm in 2005 or 6--before it moved to our place. I wrote this when I was twelve.
We were all sitting 'round the breakfast table finishing up our cereal; just Mom and the kids. Well, not Mercer, he was helping Oma and Opa with the tours. We had dropped him off there a couple days ago, and today we were going to pick him up, and help out ourselves.
“Is there a tour today?” Heath asked.
“Yes, there's a tour every day,” Mom assured us. Whoa. Every day? Wow!
We piled into the van and drove to Oma and Opa's. We came out of the van just as Mercer stepped out the front door. He couldn't have been more than seven, but I thought he was such a big boy. He was wearing his 'Adventures Day Camp' shirt, and big rubber boots.
I remembered picking him up from Adventures Day Camp a few months earlier. It had been at Grandma and Grandpa's church, and we had arrived a little bit early, so we sat on benches outside the room he was in to wait 'till he was done. I remember peeking in through the door and seeing Mercer and a whole bunch of other kids his age all wearing 'ADC' shirts sitting on the floor watching what I deemed to be a 'scary' movie. I have always, since then, thought ill of day camps and wondered how much fun they could possibly be.
Mom was greeting Mercer, and Mercer was explaining how he was off to help Opa. So me and Heath tagged along helping Opa too.
Eventually the buses arrived and turned around in the small space Oma and Opa had to offer. The kids came pouring out and Oma greeted them. Then Uncle Abe took some kids on a hayride. I went with them, climbing onto the hay rack by stepping on a bale. Then I sat in the middle of the two rows of bales because I was afraid of the cows.
We drove out into the pasture and called the cows. They came by twos and threes and stuck their heads right onto the hay rack because they knew the tour kids always fed them bread. I just huddled in the middle of the crowd of kids, terrified out of my skin.
When we drove on the cows stayed behind and I sat normally.
When we stopped again it was beside the old cabin. Uncle Abe picked up a cow pie and showed it to the kids. They shrieked and refused to touch it.
When we went back it was lunch time. We sat around the table and ate sandwiches and discussed the morning, the afternoon, and the problems in both. I distinctly remember asking Mom if I could play on the swings and in the sandbox with Heath. She said yes. But when I went outside, the playground was full of kids. While I waited for them to be gathered up, Mercer told us the news. Apparently a cow was giving birth!
I went on the next hayride despite my terror, and, sure enough, there was a cow with one front leg sticking out. The hayride went wild with excitement. But Mercer seemed to know that there was something wrong. He told me that she was having trouble giving birth. She certainly was walking around and bawling.
When we got back to the yard, I played on the swings and told Heath the news. He went on the third and last hayride in excitement trying to see the cow. I was left to play on the playground with the Goertzen girls, who had arrived in the meantime. When the tour groups were leaving, and as soon as Opa was done, he walked quickly across the yard to get his calving machine. Mercer said later that he had never seen Opa walk quite that fast.
Opa loaded all the calving machines onto the hay rack, and, of course, all the Goertzen girls and us climbed on too, and Mom, so there was quite a crowd going to see him pull the calf.
When we got there, however, the calf was already on the ground, in a big heap of goo, and the cow was licking it off. We excitedly named it 'Sugar' even though it was as black as could be.
Later (two years later), we bought 'Sugar' off of Opa, And to this day she is in our herd, one of the bossiest ones, and can be identified by her tail. It is shorter than the others.
