Hi world! Chris here. This Saturday, I woke up at 6 am to drive 4 hours for the same small cow sale that I stop by every year. “It’s not the sale I go for,” I tell people, “it’s the Christmas shopping with my mom afterwards.” For years now, this has remained mostly true. But for this year, I went with a blog-based motivation as well.

I thought it would be really neat to write a blog post all about sales and cows, and it would be all educational for people that didn’t get to grow up in the same environment that I did. However, two sentences in I realized that I wasn’t made for factual writing. I’m just way too emotional.

When I think of farms and cows, I don’t think of the information surrounding them. I think of standing around the wheelbarrow full of feed with Rae and Jacob, each of us daring the other to eat it (Spoiler Alert: we all did). I think of rewording Toby Keith’s “Beer For My Horses” so that we were singing about our cows as we drank soda on the back of dad’s truck. I think of sneaking into a pasture of bulls and having to immediately turn around and scale the fence because one came after us.

With these and about a hundred other memories swirling in my head, I thought something a little more personal would mean a lot more than a list of facts. So, with an arsenal of cute cow pictures and a Spotify playlist of REAL country music, I decided to write a personal essay/creative essay, or just whatever you wanna call it.

To be a good farmer, one needs to follow a very long and very thorough list of physical requirements that includes things like good boots, tough gloves, and coveralls for the snow. It’s an unwritten rule that a good farmer should have plenty of land for their herd to graze and a comfortable barn for them to spend cold days. Anyone who knows about livestock knows that a tractor isn’t necessary, but it’s a surefire helpful thing to have. Just like a good truck.

To be a good farmer, it’s important to be strong. It takes hours to haul hay by hand and then twice that to unload it all again. Not to mention the weight of a calf or a tire for the trailer. Rolling a round bale through the snow was not made for the faint of heart. That’s why a good farmer knows that they should be strong inside as well. It takes more than dedication to get up before the sun and feed the part of your family with fur before yourself. And there is no such thing as a day off either. No matter the weather.

To be a good farmer, one should never be alone. Wives and husbands and friends and kids should be part of the force that one faces the world with each morning. You need multiple hands to fetch the hay and mix the feed and walk the fence and work the hair and tag and tattoo and do all the things that a farmer must do. A good farmer needs someone to remind him to take it easy when he’s been working too hard. And someone to sit in the back of his truck and sing along to the radio when the day is done. Or play fight with the water hose when the day is hot and long.

To be a good farmer, one must always be in love. In love with the cows and in love with the earth. In love with watching the sun rise and the dew turn into fog as he empties buckets of grain into empty troughs. In love with the smell of a diesel truck and the sound of a distant moo. A good farmer has a good heart that loves what he does and, in doing so, makes others love it too.

But the most important part of any good farmer, is the fact that they don’t expect anyone to want to do what they do. Even when it’s their own children choosing things like fashion, or fighting, or wild fancies over the life that was made for them, a good farmer doesn’t mind. They’re happy with the memories they save, and they smile for the memories they gave away.

I am not a good farmer, and I really don’t think that will ever change. But, that’s something I’m okay with. I’ve spent enough nights at the barn and enough days on the farm. I’ve helped halter break, I’ve helped feed, and I’ve even been there to help during calving. In the summer, in the winter, and in every season in between, I used to spend my time in the pasture. I will never claim that I enjoyed it, but looking back, it’s hard to imagine doing anything else. That’s why when I think of my mother, or when I think of my father, I think I know what it takes to be a good farmer.

**This post is dedicated to mom and dad as the end of the Rucker Family Farm approaches.

I know this was kind of a random post, but it’s getting into the end of the semester and now it’s final project and final essay season. Basically the only fun thing I’ve been able to do is go to the cow sale. That just guaranteed that my post HAD to be about cows. Hopefully it was a little entertaining and if not, at least it was filled with cute pictures! There should be something enjoyable here. I’ll even include one more, just for you.

Next post will probably be something to do with Thanksgiving considering it will be coming out the week after. I have some options because I am traveling for the holiday and working in retail on Black Friday, so I should have a plethora of interesting things to say. Until then, stay safe out there!