Dairy visit....

 Dairy visit....

My first recollection of life is walking down a row of dairy cows in a small milking shed, cows lined up, feeding in a trough, my dad at the end of an aisle, walking towards me...

There is not photograph of this, but when I told my mother long ago of this memory, she was surprised as I was little, maybe 2 and that actually was a place where my dad worked and we lived nearby...we would visit him while there...Beatrice, California...long gone, a sign on a crossroad’s map...if even that anymore...

My mother was raised on a dairy in Ferndale, California...we drove past the dairy where she lived all of my growing up years....down the street from her school...her father died there when she was 15, so they moved away...she would recall nights that he would pace from the pain in his hands from the hand milking that he did...she remembered singing in the woodshed and directing a make-believe orchestra, being loved...

My dad later worked on another ranch, tending their cattle, designing silage bunkers for food storage...a place where, earlier, he first met and fell in love with my mother...

When he worked for the agricultural department, he met with all the ranchers, dairyman for farm reports...keeping close accounts of their needs and concerns...as well as long friendships.

We moved away from all of that, as my parent’s “retired”, I had moved away to college, marriage, motherhood....but we still enjoyed driving through the countryside, dotted with beautiful working dairies still offering green pastures for the cows.

Later, with great-grand children in tow, my dad would take them to see a dairy, more modern with machines working, bigger barns...one in particular had a surprising tale...one of the older men, looked at my son,  amazement in his eyes, “you look just like your great grandfather”...he had known my mother’s father as a young man...

(We later found a picture and they could have been twins)....

Another connection to dairies....my youngest son’s ancestors came to the same area as my grandparents from Denmark, worked, were on the same tax rolls, probably were friends or acquaintances...small world...

So here we are touring a diary here in Idaho.....seeing yet another generation of dairy people...more modern still, maternity pens, calf houses, electric milkers, computer programs, cow pedometers...but, still the love of the vocation...the care given, the green fields...

This all to say, God has blessed each with a gift of work, a path in life...some on computers, firemen, policemen, geologists, dairyman, pastors, builders, salesman, ranchers, store clerks, teachers, etc., etc.

For our family, we are rooted in resources, rocks, forestry, ranching, agriculture, dairying...each  generation finding its calling ...thank YOU for providing vocations, that God-driven desire to fulfill Your sense of purpose...to seek You along our paths, to find the faith that You given in measure...

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. 

You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. 

Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! 

If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. 

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. 

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. 

Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. 

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! 

How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you. 

Search me, O God, and know my heart! 

Try me and know my thoughts! 

And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”

Psalm 139:1-18,23-24