Between constant renovations to our old farmhouse, being five months pregnant while raising a 1-year-old, and the day-to-day tasks of farm work, it seems that everything I do leads to another task, and another, and yet another until I forget what I even set out to do in the first place.
No matter what analogy you use to describe the many little chain reactions of events in your life like snowballing, or dominos falling, the fact remains that a lot of tasks tend to lead to another. These may or may not be predicable, but you must deal with them regardless of how they emerge.
On the farm, a lot of things are so systematic that many regular tasks we do are set up much like dominos. Here’s a prime example of something that comes about regularly; the calving pen is full, meaning many new calves are being born. The individual calf pens fill up, so we transition them to the automatic calf feeder group pens. As those group pens fill up and calves are weaned, the weaned pen reaches maximum capacity. Now we must shuffle the eight groups of young stock around on the main farm, which means we must shuffle four more groups of older animals to the next biggest pens to make room. This process of shuffling each calf around to their next size pen takes up an entire day every few weeks.
This process also means we need to dehorn the 4 to 6-week-old calves before they move groups, then schedule the vet for further vaccinations when they get a little older. For those two tasks to be completed, we also need to make sure we have the personalized ear tags for each calf on hand. To do so, we need to update our paper records and our computer program, and then place the detailed ear tag in order using that information.
This is an endless routine, and predictable scenarios like this occur while running a dairy farm and raising multiple crops. You may also encounter a long list of surprise snowball-like scenarios with equipment breakdowns, machinery maintenance, building upkeep, animal health and management, feeding and nutrition and so on. That’s why farmers often start the day with a tentative plan of what they’d like to accomplish, but when 9 p.m. rolls around they haven’t even started to tackle what they initially set out to do.
My husband and I run into these chain reactions constantly while working on in-depth renovations of our old farmhouse. Anyone who has done some level of house updates knows that one thing always leads to another. For instance, you want to repaint the bathroom, but before you do that, you might as well replace the shower since that’s in the plans anyway; and if you’re replacing the shower, why not update the vanity and toilet while you’re at it? Of course, you can’t just swap those things out because the flooring is cracking and the subfloor is sagging in spots or has water damage. Because those need replaced, you better update the plumbing, but to access that you need to get into the wall by removing the old plaster. And, if you’re going to have to patch plaster, you might as well bring in drywall and install new trim instead. Before you know it, painting the bathroom means a full gut job and all new everything. That is the never-ending conversation my husband and I have as we work through updating our house and making it our home. I’m sure we’re not the only ones that have run into these same situations.
As for raising kids, I think any parent will agree that tasks continually snowball there as well. You want to vacuum, so toys need to be picked up, but you need less stuff to better organize so you start decluttering. School may start soon so you need to go school shopping, be sure to tack on a last-minute family activity or trip, and while you’re at it, the kids might as well get doctor, dentist, and eye appointments done while they’re still on break. Say you’re expecting another baby, so you want to transition your toddler to a bigger bedroom, which means things like painting, swapping beds, sorting through hand-me-downs. The list could go on and on.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, a lot of life consists of small tasks that are all part of a bigger chain reaction. Sometimes all those little things are too daunting or seem mundane, but choosing to appreciate the normalcy and blessing of it all helps me in being grateful for all we have.
The author dairy farms with her parents and brother near Hawkeye, Iowa. The family milks approximately 300 head of grade Holstein cows at Windsor Valley Dairy LLC — split half and half between a double-eight parallel milking parlor and four robotic milking units. In the spring of 2020, Molly decided to take a leap and fully embrace her love for the industry by returning full time to her family’s dairy.
