Country Christmas

Christmas in the country is a glorious time of the year.  There was snow nine out of ten Christmases.  We lived inside the Lake Michigan lake effect zone.  Van Buren County has an extra left hook if you will.  The land mass juts out where it was easier to add on to the county rather than start a new one when the mapmakers put counties in a Cartesian coordinate pattern.  This added slightly more land area, similar to Berlin Township in Monroe County.  You can draw a map square but the shoreline is irregular. 

The anticipation of Santa Claus arrival was more in the forefront than focus on Christ's birth.  This is probably normal when you are barely in long pants.  When you get a little older, it is a combination of Santa, relatives, dinner at Grandma's, presents and Christ's birth.   Celebration now is more focused on Christ, relatives, grandchildren, presents and dinner.  Well that is the intent any way. 

Growing up snow was fun we all liked it.  Cold did finally get you back in the house to dry your gloves or mittens on the wood burning stove.  There is an art to warming up to a wood burner.   You needed to rotate your derriere or you become the roast.  There are hot spots from the stove itself.  You learn how energy dissipates in an algebraic function.  Heat and warmth drops off as a square of the distance from the stove.  If you are twice the distance from the stove you get one-fourth the heat factor.  Wood stoves will heat an individual at least four times.  First by cutting trees down or if you are lucky unloading it.  Second heating is when splitting and stacking the wood.  Third heating is from burning it.  The fourth heating is dragging ashes and clunkers out for disposal.  As a child, you tried to be good as a fifth heating could come from a wood switch. 

Christmas morning was exciting opening gifts; some were hand made and some store bought.   The special gifts were from Santa.   He just seemed to know what you had your heart set on.  Getting all seven kids, both parents and Tootsie the house beagle in our living room was a shoehorn job without a Christmas tree and wrapped packages.  Some how there was enough room.  The tree was fresh cut, usually from our woods.  Occasionally neighbors would offer a tree.   Mom or Dad would pick one up from 4-H or a group selling trees.  Tree decorations were a few glass ornaments, children hand made ones from previous school or Sunday school classes.  We seemed to use many paper chains, popcorn strands with Cranberries to add color.  

We had to get chores done before we could have more than a Christmas orange or banana.   Milking, feeding, watering and manure movement was done like a well-oiled team effort.  Getting hay and grain around is a never-ending job with cattle.  It is amazing the amount they need to be productive. 

If you want to make money with livestock, you have to feed them.  The saying garbage in garbage out applies to more than computers.  Whether making muscle, milk or fiber you need to furnish the right building blocks for your product.  I have never figured out people that do not feed the right stuff to animals.  I have had cases where people try to feed all day old bread or slightly off bulk corn chips to livestock.  Some surplus products are used very effectively when added to ground corn or other grain supplements.   A limit of twenty to twenty five percent of total ration works best.  Cattle need long stem fiber hays to stimulate digestive processes.  It is a proven fact that grains or hay grain mixtures ground to fine will cause displaced abomasums (DA) in cattle.  This is a twisted stomach.  Usually a DA is a stomach filled with trapped gas that floats up the abdominal wall and is stuck there.  Surgical correction or a ride to market will solve the individual problem.  

In our house cookie ornaments never seemed to make it to the tree.  Gingerbread, frosted sugar cookies, Rum balls and Grandma's Ledkuken were my favorite cookies.  Dinner on Christmas Day was at Grandma Blust's house a mile down the road.  There was more food than this skinny boy could eat.  Well, I was very skinny back then.  My body has changed since then.   We would spend the afternoon with relatives have an early supper and go home to do evening chores.

After feeding the critters, milking and getting them tucked in for the night we would go back and look over the gifts we got.  It is amazing the things we think we need pale in comparison to the love that accompanied the gifts.  When you separate your needs from your greeds and focus on family and God you have things in balance.  You cannot buy love with money.  I do not think you can even rent it.  Having a child or grandchild give you a present they selected or made by themselves is a real expression of love.

 We receive love and devotion daily when we coexist with animals.  There are special pets we all have a soft spot for and seem to have a greater attraction to us.   I have a difficult time with people that mistreat animals.  Not giving them enough to eat, ignoring disease states and refusing to treat what I know are usually curable problems befuddles me.   The same thing applies to some people I have met.  They need more help than I am able to give them.

In this Christmas season, I hope you are at peace with God, your family and yourself.
This is the season we celebrate the birth of my savior Jesus the Christ.  I am thankful Christ gives me what I need and he is wise enough to give me only a part of what I deserve.  I am hopeful Santa brings me what I want and not what I deserve.   My wish to you is that Santa and Christ are good to you this season.

Merry Christmas to all.

For more information about a specific case, consult your veterinarian.                   
The outside of a pet is good for the inside of a human.