First things first, had a frog in my washing machine while I was mowing the yard. I put in a load of clothes in before I went out to mow the yard. I asked Matt to put them in the dryer when they were done. I came back inside after getting rained out of mowing the yard and Matt told me there was a frog in the washing machine. Notice I said a frog IN the washing machine, not there WAS a frog in the machine, but that he had got it out for me. Nope he left it in there until I got back inside. This frog made it through an entire wash cycle alive and well! It makes me feel really secure about how clean those clothes are! So I know two things about mowing the yard.
1. There is or soon going to be animals, that I don't want, in our house.
2. It will rain before I get the whole yard mowed. Hence the reason there's about 5 different heights of grass in the yard.
This week I spent a lot of time helping work cattle for my parents. As I've said before every cattle producer does things a little bit differently. My mom doesn't like putting implants into her calves. There's a market for implanted calves and there's a market for non-implanted calves. It depends on the producer to decide which option they want to take and what works for them. My parents have decided that non-implanted works for them. Therefore, we spent the week giving shots (to prevent sickness), castrating the bulls, ear notching the ears (for identification purpose) and putting fly tags in their ears to prevent flies. Flies are really bad for cattle. When cattle are fighting flies, it means they aren't eating. When they aren't eating, they aren't gaining weight. When they aren't gaining weight, they aren't being efficient with the resources they are being given. Also, they can get infections in their eyes and cause problems. Fly control is very important to cattle producers.
Another big event this week was the Jackson Heights FFA Alumni Tractor Drive. This, in theory, is ridiculous. What happens is farmers bring their tractors, pay a registration fee, then use their diesel to go on this drive. The drive consists of all the tractors registered following each other around. Our drive was 25 miles long and took approximately 3 hours with 2 stops. Sounds ridiculous right? Well, farmers LOVE doing it. There are some people that drove for 3 hours just to come to this tractor drive. It's a great fundraiser for our alumni chapter so that we can continue giving scholarships to the seniors and supporting other chapter activities.
One of my biggest mentors and role models in life is my FFA advisor, Mr. Paul Lierz. (For those of you that don't know, FFA used to stand for Future Farmers of America. It's now the National FFA Association. FFA has over 500,000 members nationwide and over 8000 in the state of Kansas. It's an organization you can be in during high school and there are a few Collegiate FFA Chapters as well. It was and is by far my most favorite student organization to be involved in. Look up their websites to get more information. (www.ksffa.org for Kansas FFA or www.ffa.org for National FFA.) Anyway, Lierz has always been a huge supporter of mine. He encouraged me to run for offices, compete in different events, get outside my comfort zone, but most importantly showed me just how overlooked simply having an incredibly great role model is. I was his first State FFA Officer Candidate (after 20 some odd years of teaching) and he supported and got me help for an intensive and rigorous interviewing process. When I wasn't successful in getting an office, we did the whole thing all over again the next year. When I again didn't get an office, he encouraged me to get involved in different things and not to give up because of a failed attempt to get an office. Lierz is a very philosophical person as any of his students should know by Philosophy Fridays in his class. (Hence the name of this blog).
I had the chance to visit with him Saturday at the Tractor Drive. I'm always amazed at the wisdom I come away with. He has the ability to make you think deeper about your life and the true meaning behind life. Lierz makes you want to really set goals for your life and work hard to accomplish those goals in life. The first day of every class you take of Lierz's starts with "Lierz's Philosophy of Life". In it he teaches student that life doesn't start on certain birthdays. For example, many people really look forward to being a teenager and wish away those years before, then when you get to be a teenager you want to be sixteen so you can drive, then when you get to sixteen you want to be eighteen so you can vote, then you want to be twenty-one so you can drink, then on and on and on and on it goes. Wishing away our lives, waiting for "the" birthday where life will really begin and be great for us. Lierz teaches us not to wish away any time in our lives, but to really live each year, not to keep waiting for "the" year.
This past week was the Kansas State FFA Convention. (Look up www.ksffa.org to see some video from the event.) It's a big deal where a lot of FFA members converge on Manhattan to compete in different events and be awarded for their accomplishments. There are normally a ton of great motivational speakers. Lierz was telling me about one message of one of the speakers and I thought it was appropriate to share in this very philosophical blog.
This speaker attended several events nationwide. At the smaller events he had all the letters in the alphabet on cards. He would give each attendee a letter and explain that they would have 10 minutes to use their letter to make as many words as possible. Atendees would get excited about this challenge until he handed the letters out and some got the q or x or z. Letters that are difficult to make words out of. Then they would get discouraged and decide they weren't even going to try to make an effort. Well, one event he was asking a student that had a q how many words he had made. He was shocked when the student replied 39. The speaker asked the student how he had done that with a q. The student replied, "Well, you can't make very many words with a q, but if you put your finger over the tail on the q, the q turns into an a and you can make lots of words with an a." What would life be like if we all thought like that rather than being discouraged when life hands us a q. What letter has life provided you with this week and what have you done with it?
Farming is a lot of time like this. Sometimes farm life hands you an "a" one week. All the projects get done, the cattle get to grass, planting done, etc. Other times farm life hands you a "z". Nothing gets done, you find dead cattle in the pastures, the crops all need sprayed, etc. It's what we do in each one of these weeks that define what kind of person we are. Matt likes the saying, "Attitudes are like flat tires, you aren't going anywhere until you change it."
Not sure where all this philosophical stuff came from this week, probably from seeing Lierz, but every once in a while everybody needs a little reminder about attitude. There is ALWAYS someone that has it worse. Probably somebody right down the street. Take time for yourself. It's a great thing we live in the country, 2 miles from our nearest neighbors. Mowing the yard has become "my" time. I get my iPod out, put it on my favorite playlist, turn it up really loud and sing my heart out. (I'm not a great singer). But, that is my time to be with me and me alone. It's a time to reflect on what I've been doing, what I have done wrong recently in my marriage, how to improve that. It's not a time for me to be planning what I need to get done and when (it probably should be), but mowing the yard is simply a time for me to reflect with myself. I don't think it's made me any better person or wife, but I enjoy the time. I encourage you to find a time like this to have "me" time. I'm sure all you moms out there know that WAY better than me. Find a time to love on yourself, forget about what you haven't got done and simply enjoy. Feel blessed for the fact that you have a mower to mow the yard, a yard to mow and a life that you are continuing to live. Some don't have near that much! I'm so utterly blessed and forget so often.
Anyway, go make your favorite chocolate chip cookies this week. Can't go wrong with any of those recipes. (I always use the one on the back of the butter boxes-that's how awesome my cooking skills are). If you need help tasting any of them, let me know!
Have a great and safe week. Starting to storm at our house tonight. Be safe when out and about. Listen to weather warnings and get inside! Don't forget about your pets!
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