He doesn’t milk cows, but he’s up with the sun every morning so he can get some morning chores done before he heads off to his job in town. He has a half-dozen kids, but they’re aging out now and heading off to college or “spousing up” and leaving the family farm. He’s not quite a gentleman farmer, and he’s far from a buckaroo, but Wellington likes his cows. He doesn’t profess to be a top hand, but he’s pretty handy at the sorting gate. The old family farm, moving now into the hands and hearts of the sixth generation, was never really big enough or lucrative enough to provide more than a healthy part-time income for his parents, but they loved it and cared for it like it was one of their kids.
Wellington and his little sister, the two tail-enders of the family, inherited that same fondness for the stubborn, rocky soil and steep hillside range ground. They, in turn, passed that affection on to their spouses and children. They’ve always counted it among their choicest blessings that they were able to move back to the home place to raise their families. Between Wellington and his big Swede brother-in-law, Lars, they’re able to not only see the little ranch succeed but thrive. Lars’ pragmatic way of thinking and no-nonsense business approach is the perfect complement to Wellington’s sentimental attachment to every cow and his fondness for husbandry and affinity for reading the land.
Wellington has navigated his dual-occupation lifestyle with aplomb. His town job requires some tech savviness and, at times, some persuasive smooth talk. He’s plenty book-smart, but he’s folksy enough to navigate both the dirt roads and the six-lane highways of business with equal proficiency. He loves the latest electronic gadgets nearly as much as he loves his three-legged heeler and the sway-backed 25-year-old black mare in the little pasture behind the house, both of which will surely live their last day on the homeplace.
One late March Saturday, after the snow melt and between the rare spring rain showers that were oddly more frequent than usual that year, Wellington found the perfect opportunity to dig a few post holes and replace a 50-foot section of the old corral across the road from his grandparents’ old home. With him that day, he packed a hammer and nails in a 5-gallon bucket, the usual half-smile on his face, the latest greatest iPhone in his pocket and the best Bluetooth earbuds a farm boy could find on Amazon. The latest technology was impressive. It allowed him to listen to a podcast or music or notes from his secretary, but when he spoke, the program would automatically pause and restart when he finished speaking. On this day, he didn’t figure to do much speaking, only listening, so he chose to listen to an inspirational presentation mixed with a touch of spiritually enlightening music.
Before he could start his fence reclamation project, he needed to move eight or nine fall-born calves to another pen. They’d been weaned for a few weeks, at that point, and by then Wellington had a pretty good working relationship with all of the calves – all of them but one. The high-headed heifer calf out of one of his favorite Simmy cows never seemed to take to old Wellington like the other calves had. She tested him at every opportunity. She’d hang back in the corner when he fed. She’d blow snot at him when he had the bunch in the alley. She seemed to tolerate him with an extreme brand of disdain. He, reciprocally, despised the brockle-faced beast with a hidden disgust, manifested only occasionally by an under-his-breath oath that he’d prefer his children not hear.
Wellington set the gates so he could move the little jag of calves to a different pen. It was a simple procedure. As the calves approached the first gate, they all made the corner and trotted up the alleyway. As Wellington jogged up to close the gate, his waspy nemesis whirled around and, with the swiftness of a winged Pegasus, stormed past him and landed a flying cow kick square on his thigh. She flew by him and made a wild leap at the weak spot in the fence, nearly clearing it but smashing through the two top rails. She flipped tail over tea kettle but barely slowed down as she found her footing and sped off into the brush, joining the herd of cows, a half-mile to the east.
Wellington picked himself up off of the wet ground and watched in disgust as the beast stopped only momentarily to look back at him. She was way off in the distance, but he was fairly certain that the devil, masquerading as a delinquent bovine, somehow – in a uniquely devilish bovine way – signaled her contempt with an unmistakable gesture as she galloped out of sight. Wellington returned the favor, in kind, and finished off the exchange with a string of oaths, the likes of which hadn’t been heard on that part of the farm since his notoriously colorful grandfather chased a water-stealing neighbor off of the ditch with a shovel 65 years earlier.
As he stood there, catching his breath and rubbing his aching thigh, he heard a voice in his head. Still a little dazed from the whole wild episode, he thought he might be receiving some sort of scolding from a junior avenging angel, reprimanding him for his slightly untoward behavior of the past couple of minutes. It was then that a stark yet oddly reassuring realization came over him. The voice he was hearing was the continuation of his inspiration – in more ways than one.
It wasn’t just that the podcast had simply resumed through the miracle of advanced digital technology – it was more than that. It was a more subtle yet poignant miracle that he could hear. His anger-fueled tirade hadn’t permanently silenced all the good and the positive, but it had rendered him unable to hear it. As he calmed his nerves and his spirit, he was once again thankful for the reprieve of a silent and listening heart.
