EDITOR'S NOTES

On the exceptionally hot days of summer, I often was tasked with giving our not-so-well calves an extra dose of electrolytes over the lunch hour in order to keep them hydrated through the heat. The downfall of our group-housing barn design is that when you go in the pen to treat one calf, more are sure to stop over to see what is happening.

There’s a lot of information that can be found in a set of reports. I knew from the moment we started farming a few years ago how important record-keeping can be to a successful farm operation. After all, I’ve read a lot of articles that say just that.

Ever since my days as a young 4-H member, I have been involved in event planning – so much so that you could probably call it one of my hobbies. While my husband thinks I should consider quilting, baking, gardening or really anything that requires fewer nights away at meetings and days out at events, I just can’t shake my desire to organize events.

As I write this, my school-aged child is counting down the final 26 days of school for the year. To do so, her teacher assigned a letter of the alphabet to each day and found a way to celebrate the day relating to the letter.

Every minute of every day, we act without thinking. We walk; we talk; we reach and grab for various items. While these things are now second nature, there was a time in all of our lives when each of these activities took a great amount of thought and practice to develop.

If someone were to create a formal job description for a farmer, one of the main criteria for the applicant would have to be the ability to adapt. Since farmers contend with Mother Nature and living organisms – cows, calves, plants, etc. – they must always adapt to a new situation.