When I woke up this morning my first thought was “wow I’m a little overworked, probably a good idea to take it easy today.” My second thought was “welp…time to get dressed and go move the pigs.”
I got up stretched, yawned, and went into the living room.
I looked outside and at first didn’t see anything different. We had snow on the ground when I went to bed last night.
Went into the kitchen and did a double take as I looked out the back door. The railing on the back porch looked a little different.
Turns out there were two or three inches of fresh snow…and it was still coming down…fast
This pig move was NOT optional. Our last batch of pigs for the year are leaving for the processor tomorrow morning and we need to move them to the field that connects to the loading area.
Dad and I tried to move them the previous evening and we hit a snag.
This morning we hit the same snag.
One female pig who is the rare case of a lone wolf. There’s a reason the saying is lone wolf and not lone pig. Usually if you get the whole group of pigs moving any stragglers immediately run to catch up with the group. Occasionally one will get distracted but when they realize they are alone they sprint to catch up with the group.
This girl though…
I have no idea what the other pigs did to her but she seemed completely fine staying put and watching all her brothers and sisters leave her behind.
So…all the other pigs are following the side-by-side and it seems like the ONLY direction this pig WONT go is the way we need her to.
Did I mention that the snow was coming down at mach speed (I’m not even sure what mach speed means but just go with me here).
I need to leave for work soon, and feed the cows still, and this pig is content to make sure I never get to work. So now is the time when old school ranchers would probably hit an animal. It’s extremely common. It probably wouldn’t even help to be honest. But even if it would I don’t do that. It’s simply not on the list of things I allow myself to do.
I always come back to the same saying when it comes to moving animals.
“If you want to move livestock fast, go slow”.
It’s served me extremely well and it worked like a charm today. I placed myself behind her and waited…and waited…and waited.
I wouldn’t let her go back but I didn’t push her. Dad was up ahead with the side-by-side, (which is how I’ve always fed them), and I was behind her waiting…and waiting…and waiting.
Right about the time I started coming up with all sorts of plans for what we would do if we couldn’t get the pigs where they needed to be this morning, she turned around and started walking toward the herd.
Once she joined them we kept the whole herd moving (through essentially a blizzard), and all my crazy scenarios were thankfully put to bed. By the way, our processing dates are scheduled over a year in advance and are not very flexible at all, so this needed to work.
You can always find a way to do things without doing the wrong thing. In fact if you remove the wrong thing from your options you often come up with a better way.
When slavery was ended there were plenty of people who said “How will we survive and feed everyone without slaves”.
…
What followed was the fastest advance in human prosperity in history.
This is just the very beginning of what happened today. After about six inches of snow there was over an inch of rain. Almost all of that rain was while I was driving for the mail route.
There are at least 2 more BIG stories I have for you from today but I’ll leave them for later.
I’ll give you a hint though, that wasn’t the last issue we had getting the pigs ready to go.
—Later that day, in the mail vehicle.—
I rolled down my window as I slowed down on Elk Mountain, the nastiest roads on my mail route.
“I’m guessin you’re stuck” I yelled through the pouring rain.
“Yeah, it seems like it”
It was a young guy, with what looked like a black waterproof jacket on. His car was completely off the side of the road deep in the snow.
“Is someone coming to get you?”
“No, I don’t have any reception.”
I smiled, “yeah that’s not a thing up here. Are you trying to get to Snowshoe?”
On my mail route there are two kinds of people, especially this time of year. West Virginia natives and tourists.
Let’s just say it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out which kind this guy was.
“Do you have four-wheel-drive?”
“No, it’s front wheel drive.”
(ok so this guy’s not getting out of here anytime soon)
“Alright well…umm… I’m heading down to the post office, I’ll see if there’s anyone who can come get you out.”
We went back and forth for a minute and I headed down the mountain. I got to the post office and asked the postmaster if the state would go pull him out. She laughed a little bit and said that’s not how it works. Now that I think about it the state trucks must have passed him a few times already.
I started thinking about my first few years up here when I didn’t know anyone and I was a hopeless city boy.
I got the snow shovel and left my mail at the post office and started to head back. I looked across the street at a barn with some hay in it and ran back inside real quick.
The postmaster called the guy whose hay it was and I asked him if I could grab some to get some traction for his car which has less than no business being in this part of the world on a day like this. The guy was happy to help so I went over there and filled my trunk with hay.
I headed back up there and pulled off the side of the road (not as far as he was, although my car could probably handle it.)
Then I went to work. We shoveled a path in front of him back to the road and I started jamming as much hay as I could under his front tires. I must be a hopeless optimist to have even thought this would work at all. His Jetta was basically knee deep in a slurpee.
After 15 minutes of trying I was completely soaked and his car was no better off than when we started.
“Alright man, hop in I’ll take you to the tow truck place, you’ll have to pay but they’ll get you out.”
We talked a bit on the way down the mountain. Turns out he’s a senior in college heading down from Philadelphia to school in North Carolina. He had planned to go Skiing for the day at Snowshoe on the way down. (Checking the weather next time might be a good move, the conditions would have been awful in this rain.)
So I dropped him off with a “God Bless” (and some much more West Virginia people than me who certainly weren’t going to pull him out of there for free) and went back to work.
Here’s the crazy thing about this story.
He pretty much didn’t say thank you at all…
Not…
Once…
This kid, and I feel OK calling him that, was basically not thankful at all.
I didn’t expect anything in return, I just understood what it was like to be him. I’ve broken down on that mountain before and gotten help from a good samaritan and I just wanted to help him out.
But man…
A thank you would have been nice.
It was like he expected it. Never mind that probably 50 cars, tourists and WV natives alike passed him and probably didn’t think twice about it.
Does it say something about his generation? I don’t know, I prefer to view people as individuals. Some people have felt compelled to tell me that’s just how people from northern cities are. I’m willing to accept that this kid was scared and sort of in shock but come on.
When I got picked up a few years ago, I was probably a little annoying with how much I thanked the man who picked me up.
Did I even REALLY help him by doing all this for him? Maybe a 5 mile walk with it being 35 degrees and pouring rain would have been better for him in the long run than getting off so easy.
This puts in perspective how thankful I am for the community we’re building around the ranch. Our customers pay for our products and they’re more thankful than this kid. It’s a little crazy how much we appreciate each other.
I really believe there is going to come a time soon where communities like ours are going to be more important than they’ve been in a long time.
—About 4:30 P.M. back at the ranch. Still pouring rain.—
“I told your dad I wouldn’t be able to get in here.”
“Well…you were right Delmar.”
Delmar is our good friend and neighbor who’s been hauling cattle for us for years up here.
And now his truck was stuck in the same snow I’d tried to save the kid on the mountain from earlier that day.
The rain was still coming down hard and Dad (who in hindsight really got the short end of the stick) had just left to go on a rescue squad call.
He was going to drop off the trailer so we could load the pigs on tonight. We can have a lot of trouble sometimes getting pigs on the trailer and we like to do this so we don’t embarrass ourselves in front of Delmar and waste his time.
With my eternal optimism in hand, I drove the side-by-side down to the house and loaded the back full of hay. I will say that it was a lot closer to working with Delmars truck than it was with the kids Jetta on the mountain. Sadly for my sense of optimism, in the end the results were the same.
“O.K. I’m gonna go call Doug and come pull you out of here with the tractor.”
Delmar looked around for a second from inside his truck and responded, “do you think that may get me out a’ here I don’t think I need much help.”
To my astonishment he was pointing at the side-by-side. (It’s what I’ve heard called a gator back when I lived in Richmond.)
I looked at Delmar and raised my eyebrow
I looked at his truck and trailer along with the mud and slush.
I looked at the side-by-side.
“I don’t think so man”
“Well it’s worth a try idn’t it?!” (God in heaven forgive me for this terrible southern accent dialogue.)
“OK OK I’ll run down and get the hauling strap and we’ll give it a try.”
10 minutes later we were set up and my doubts were palpable.
Moms at the top of the hill to stop any oncoming traffic. The hauling strap is wrapped around the hitch on the front of his truck and hooked on the ball on the back of the side-by-side. Delmar’s looking at me expectantly.
It felt like the whole world was watching as I yelled through the pouring rain, “ALRIGHT HERE WE GO!”
I slowly pulled forward (the side-by-side tires were on the pavement which was clean from the rain) until the tow strap drew tight
As soon as I got tension on the strap Delmar hit the gas. Mud, snow, slush, water, and the hay that hadn’t worked started flying into the air in all directions.
He was actually moving forward! A feeling of pure joy overwhelmed me as we kept going.
“IT’S WORKING!” I screamed.
And then I ran out of room to go forward…My heart sank like a ton of bricks.
I’d reached the other side of the road. He was about a foot from his front tires hitting the asphalt. Hoping against hope I backed up and turned the side-by-side up the hill and went again. At first it seemed like we’d lost the momentum and that was it.
But he actually started moving forward again!
When the front tires finally got traction his truck did things I’d be happy to never see again and he lurched up onto the road.
Once we got out of the dangerous part of the road I hopped out and ran over to his truck.
“I’ve never seen anything like that, Delmar” I laughed. We both had huge smiles on our faces.
What’s struck me over the last week is how much adversity brings people together. We really do need something to struggle against to be truly happy. Well, as long as we can overcome them.
Everyone I see is ready to talk about how bad the weather is. Delmar and I couldn’t possibly have more different backgrounds but figuring that out together was awesome.
It reminds me of how we’ve seen some of our customers’ health improve. It’s not just our products but the relationships we’ve formed. I wish that the health information we’ve been given over the last fifty years had been better but that’s just not the case.
At least we have one more way to help each other by figuring this stuff out and bouncing ideas off each other. Plenty of our customers have impacted my health choices as well.
I want to finish by saying that I understand a snowy day on the ranch isn’t exactly the Invasion of Normandy (which my grandfather participated in, it’s a miracle I’m even here). I will say that being in good shape and fueling myself correctly played a huge role in keeping up the pace all day. I know that men with much worse food have gone through much more. Now that we have the option we should have the healthiest, toughest, society on the planet. The choice is there, but only a few will take it.
One of the most important things is finding a clean source of animal protein you can trust. That is definitely a challenge for lots of people and that’s what I’m trying to fix. We have an open door policy at the farm for customers for that exact reason. Trust is what matters. We trust in nature and you can trust in us. With the three of us working together we can all thrive.
You can check out our store at,
https://www.nextlevelranch.com
John Michael