I know you hear it often; Farmers work hard. I think the reason we keep trying to tell the story of how hard we work is to get across the point that we really really care about what we do. Whether you are a livestock farmer, a grain farmer, or if you have orange trees in Florida – no one cares about the animals and the land more than us.
On our farm there are many ‘special’ days that we often do not celebrate. Birthdays, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, and Thanksgiving are a few of the ones that fall on very busy times for our operation. Because our work doesn’t wait, the celebrations have to. Sometimes we try to make the day up to one another months down the road when the work load is a little lighter, and sometimes it just gets forgotten. One more example of how agriculture is a lifestyle and not simply a job.
This year my farmer decided to take the morning of his birthday off. We spent the prior evening at the lake with family and I was planning on cooking him a birthday breakfast. That plan lasted until about 6 AM when the phone started ringing (as it seems to every day). This time some of our bison had gotten out of the fence. We jumped in the truck and headed out to start looking. Our area is very smoky because of forest fires and we had a hard time locating the herd of around 12 cows and 10 calves because of reduced visibility. Our two employees were out with quads and they had no trouble chasing the animals back in once we found them.
So my farmer spent his birthday working this year, just like every other year. Because that’s just what farmers usually do.
Agriculture Today 
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