“And how would you like it if you weren’t able to read the Bible?”
“I wouldn’t,” I answered.
“You learned that in school, didn’t you?” Dad asked.
“Yes, but also at home when you and Mom read with me, and at church when following along in the hymn book,” I said.
“Sure, that’s right. And how are your math skills?”
Dad hit a sore spot; my math was terrible. In fact, I’d probably have liked school better if learning math had not been so difficult. “A problem with school,” I continued, “was that all the students had to fit the same mold. Those that had little math ability were taught using the same methods and were expected to achieve the same goals as those with greater abilities. Someone, somewhere in the educational system, once coined the phrase: ‘all children can learn’. The educational community fell for it, but it’s all a bunch of crap. It would be true if the word ‘something’ would be added onto the phrase, because we can all learn something. But not all the same things and definitely not to the same achievement level. Yet we were still all thrown into the same room with about 24 others of varying abilities and then all were expected to reach the same level. It’s horribly frustrating and not fair. Then they ignore the other skills we have, like music or craftsmanship. No wonder we hate school.”
Dad had a sorry look on his face. He and I were different. He was a great math student; it came easy. But play the piano or type. Forget it! He said his brain didn’t know how to tell his fingers what to do when his eyes weren’t looking at them. And read and consequently play two, three, four notes at a time? Impossible. He said it was physiological - some nerve synapses in his brain just wouldn’t let him do that. I thought it was psychological – his mind just wouldn’t let him. On the other hand, I couldn’t calculate worth a dime, but could play both the piano and the flute. Dad was very glad that I could and once said he’d be willing to trade his ability to do math for the ability to play the piano. That made no sense to my teachers though. So what if I can’t learn math? Let me excel at what I can. Allow me some level of achievement.
“I wonder how many feet of twine I’ve handled in my lifetime?” Dad asked. “A million perhaps?”
“Okay, so you’re going to push your point,” I answered. “How in the world would you know that? And who would care?”
“Well, you wouldn’t really know, we’d have to estimate.”
“Estimate! You know I hate that more than word problems. What good is it anyway?” was my response.
“Just to prove a point, and I’m curious and maybe you’ll learn something. Get that paper feed bag over there. Here’s a pencil. Do some calculations.”
“Oh great,” I grumbled.
“Look at this hay bale,” he started. “Every bale has 14 inches of twine up the end and maybe averages two and a half feet for its length. How many inches total would that be on one bale?”
“Okay, I’ll oblige you,” I said. So on the feed bag I wrote two point five times 12 as there’re 12 inches in a foot. “That’s 30 inches plus the 14 up the end equals 44 inches.”
“Yes, but that’s only one end and the top. How much then for all the way around the bale?”
“88, I don’t need the paper for that,” was my answer.
“Good, but how many strings on each bale?” Dad prompted.
“Two.” But now I needed the paper again. I scribbled 88 times two. “Comes to 176.”
“176 what?” he asked.
“OK, another point; always label your answers – inches.”
“Good,” he said, “how do we change to feet?”
“Divide by 12,” I said. The paper again. “14 point six, six, six, six...”
“How are we going to work with that number?” Dad asked.
“Don’t know,” I said.
“It’s just an average anyway,” Dad went on, “an estimate. Why don’t you round it off?”
He knew I hated rounding off, too. Couldn’t see any use to it. But, on the other hand, it sure would be easier to work with 15 instead of 14.6666.
“15,” I answered.
“So every time I pick up a bale, I handle 15 feet of twine. How many bales would it take for me to handle one million feet of twine?”
“Divide again, right?” I asked.
“Yes.”
This took me longer. It was that stupid repeating six again. “66 thousand, six hundred sixty-six point six, six, six…” I replied indignantly.
“66,666 what?”
“I don’t know…feet?”
“No – you divided feet by feet per bale. The feet cancel out. What’s left?” Dad asked.
“Bales I suppose.”
“You suppose correctly,” he continued. “So how many bales per year would I have to have picked up to handle that million feet of twine?”
“Don’t you ever give up? How would I figure that?”
Dad answered, “If the answer we’re looking for is bales per year, and remembering that ‘per’ means divided by, then we need to divide the number of bales by the number of years I’ve worked with them. This requires another skill – deduction. Let’s suppose I’ve handled bales fairly regularly since I’m ten years old. I’m now 53. How many years is that?”
“That I can answer – 43 years. So if we are looking for bales per year I divide 66,666 bales by 43 years?” I asked.
“That’s correct.”
It took more paperwork and a bit of time. “It comes to 1,558.” I paused. He gave me a funny look. “Bales per year,” I finished.
“Good. So in your estimation do you think that I have handled more than 1558 bales per year and then consequently handled a million feet of twine in my lifetime?”
“Easy,” I answered, “that’s only four or five bales a day.”
“Wow! How did you know that so quickly?”
“I don’t know. You’re just like our teachers who want us to explain our answers. Maybe I learned something?” I sarcastically commented. “There’s 365 days in a year, so four bales times 400 is 1600. Sounded like a good estimate.”
“It was,” Dad answered, “and you rounded off, too.”
“Whoopee!” I exclaimed.
“So do you think I’ve handled a million miles of twine in my lifetime?” he asked.
“You really don’t give up. Do I have to go through all these steps again?”
“No, just add one additional piece of information.”
“And what would that be?” I asked
“The number of feet in a mile. You all ready estimated four to five bales per day for one million feet. You just have to multiply by feet per mile to determine how many bales per day for one million miles. How many feet in a mile?”
“Five thousand and something,” I answered.
“5280,” Dad continued, “can you figure it out now?”
“As this is just an estimate I might as well just round it off to 5000. Times four or five bales comes to 20,000 – 25,000 bales per day. Didn’t happen.”
“No, didn’t happen. What did happen was you learned something about estimating and rounding off.”
“I suppose I did… and without a school!” I jubilantly declared. “So you don’t need to make me go to school!”
“Well, to repeat my answer to your original question. No, not now.”
“OK, I guess. What are we going to do with all this rope we’re making anyway?” I asked.
“Oh, for any need that may arise and for harnesses,” Dad answered.
“Harnesses?” I asked.
“Yes. Butch gave us a nice harness for Brutus, but you never know when it might tear or we’ll need to design some different or stronger rigging to pull a harrow or a wagon to bring Harvey’s crop in,” Just then Harvey walked in the barn. “And for the oxen,” Dad concluded.
“Oxen?” I quizzed.
“Yes,” said Harvey, “we’re going to take two evenly matched bull calves and pair them up to be oxen. We’ll have to castrate them like we do the steers now. Then maybe in a couple months we’ll start a second pair, and a third and so on. Unless we have a return of the fuel supply we are going to have some heavy work to do around here. Brutus and Butch’s other horses are pretty old and we’re afraid won’t be able to do a lot. The oxen probably won’t be able to do any real heavy pulling until they’re 15 months old, so we need to get started.”
“But how will they learn to be oxen?” I asked.
“They’ll have to be trained – taught by us,” Dad said.
That blew holes in my geese theory. “How will we do that?” I asked.
“First, after choosing the pair, we’ll use two saplings and tie the wood across and under their necks with the rope you’re making. At first they’ll hate it. They’ll struggle and bawl perhaps. We’ll have to stay with them diligently the first day so they don’t hurt each other. In fact, we’ll only leave them connected for an hour the first day, then two the second day, then three, until they get used to being yoked together. Eventually they need to learn to drink, eat, and of course, move together. They’ll have to do everything together. And get used to us. We’ll move them, walk them, pull them, talk to them. As they get older and larger, we’ll build heavier, stronger yokes for them. The whole thing’s an experiment. We don’t know how it’s going to work. We’ve plenty of animals here; more than we need for milk and plenty even for meat. As horses are in short supply, if we can successfully train several pair of oxen, we’ll be able to supply some of the neighbors with a pair or two to help with their work. Are you willing to help with the training?”
“Sure,” I answered, “I have Brutus to tend as my first priority, then cooking and dishes. I guess I’ll have some time if Dad doesn’t have me working all the time or sends me to school.”
“School?” Harvey asked, “what foolishness you telling this child? We got a lot of work to do.” It appeared I had an ally.
“Oh give it up you two,” Dad said. “I’ll remember - work first. And you know, Harvey, we can’t castrate all the bulls into steers. You’re going to need one to breed your open cows.”
“What are open cows?” I asked.
“Cows that haven’t been bred and are not carrying calves. They’re not… you know…pregnant,” he said a little sheepishly.
“You don’t need to explain. Between helping with the cows over at Chester’s and from what I learned in school, yes I know I said school Dad, I got the whole picture. Just didn’t recall ever hearing that term.”
“How many cows are carrying now?” Dad asked.
“Twenty-nine, that leaves about thirty that aren’t bred,” Harvey answered.
“How will they get bred, without a bull?” I asked.
“Same as before; Larry breeds them artificially, using semen stored in that liquid nitrogen tank in the milk house,” Harvey answered. I remembered Chester had a tank like that too. He told me never to play with it as it was very dangerous. Liquid nitrogen is something like 200 degrees below zero, much colder than dry ice, and it will burn you just as quickly. But it served its purpose well, keeping the semen frozen until it was needed.
“Do you have a good supply?” Dad asked.
“I think we have 35 ampules. We can split an ampule sometimes and breed two cows or heifers at a time. But then figuring some repeat services, maybe the best we can do is get 25 to 30 animals bred with the supply we have. Who knows? Maybe it will last six months if the nitrogen doesn’t lose its punch. Then we’ll need a bull to keep the operation running. There is one uncastrated bull calf in with the nursing cows, about ten weeks old. We can eventually use him, but he might not be old or large enough to get the job done until maybe next May. It would be best if we could trade for a bull with some other cattle producer in the neighborhood, doesn’t even matter what breed it is,” Harvey concluded.
“We’ll have to keep that in mind,” Dad said.
To be continued…. Mort
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