Occasionally something will hit me and I immediately go back fifteen or ten years to that little farm girl I once was. It's has happened twice this week, and both times I am transported back in time to very distinct memories from my childhood. Since both of these memories were about my dad, and his birthday is tomorrow, I thought I would write him a post about my week of memories.
Earlier this week on Monday, I was walking out of American Fork Junior High after a long day of teaching my incredibly irritating, beloved 7th grades, and, as I was unlocking my car door, my head whipped up to the sound of geese. I will always associate those first honks I hear with the end of winter and the heaviness of winter immediately leaving me. I was very young when I first learned about the geese coming and going each fall and spring. Ironically, I learned about their journey because of a mistaken journey.
I couldn't have been very old, maybe 10, when we had a fluke week in the middle of our very cold Bear Lake winters. We were feeding the cows with the sleigh as usual, which meant every day at 4:30pm my dad and I would hook up whatever team we had at the time, load the sled up with hay, and trek down through several fields to feed the cows waiting in the bottoms. Now, I have too many stories just about those trips, but this one in particular is one of my favorites. This fluke week was a fake spring in about February, where it gives you hope that the snow will melt and the sun will start shining every day, and I won't have to scrape the outside and inside of car windows anymore. This happens most every year, and it always fooled me (and still does) that we really might have a short winter! This year, it did fool a flock of geese. As we drove down on our sleigh we crossed through the second field, and found a whole flock of geese had come home early for this fake spring. I distinctly recall my dad saying how they were going to regret their mistake next week when they realize winter isn't over yet. Each day during this fake spring we would drive through the flock and see them moseying about in the field, and, sure enough, the next week winter resumed. The flock of geese were now out of their element as the ground filled back up with snow.
One day my dad came out of the horse barn leading the two massive horses as usual, but in his hand he had the old grain can with the dented side, which was not usual. I asked him what it was for, and he replied it was to carry grain. Thank you, father, for always pointing out the obvious. As we neared the winter geese, he hooked the reins into the V of the sled's front (again, I have several stories about how at other times this form of autopilot has gone terribly wrong), picked up the dented grain can, walked to the back of the sled (again, I could tell you many ways this could have gone wrong), and started flinging the grain onto the hard-packed snow. The geese ran for it, and lined up just like the cows did for their hay. My dad was feeding these disoriented geese. This just proves my point that my dad likes to feed things. It doesn't matter if it is a crippled work horse, a frozen Ronda lamb, an Agnus half steer/half bull, or a flock of lost geese--he feeds it...unless it happens to by my pet cow, Curly; then he sells it.
Each day for the rest of the winter we carried our Grinch-like sled of hay and dented can of grain down through the fields stopping to feed the young bulls, Jock the retired work horse, Clyde and Toby, the geese, and finally the cows.
Several years after our geese winter, I mentioned something about it to my dad, and he denied this ever happening, so either this entire story is a figment of my imagination (it isn't), or my dad was trying to act like he would never be so soft as to waste several sacks of grain on a flock of geese who were so terrible at being birds that they flew back in the middle of winter.
A few days later after hearing those signaling honks of geese fly over my head on Monday, I was sitting on the cold ground watching Steven play an intramural football game. This is a familiar evening to me as I have watched him play the last couple years, and on a cool evening a strong smell wafts across the busy road and floods the field. Usually my company remarks that it smells horrible, but, to me, it is the smell of home and spring time.
I can really tell spring is on its way by the smells in my home valley. I wouldn't trust the geese; they aren't the best judges of seasons... After the first couple of true warm days, a smell begins to take over. Thawing crap. Literally. My home is just across the street from my families own farm, and, even better, it is surrounded on both sides by more farms. But as soon as I smell my neighbor's dairy farm thawing, I know Spring is here to stay. I have these randoms memories about my dad saying spring was here because he could smell the dairy farms. So even though my football spectator companions may dislike the smell of the dairy farm across the road from the field, it sends me home instantaneously.
