A rainbow following the storm

THORP, Wis. — Tom Lipinski was a dairy farmer, by birth and by choice. He dreamed of farming long enough that all his grandchildren would have memories of Grandpa’s farm.

Life had other ideas, forcing Tom’s retirement nearly three years before his planned retirement age of 67 — a timeline difficult for him to accept.

“At the time I was tired, but I didn’t know it,” Tom said. “We had started thinking about what would come next, after the farm — we really had no idea what that would be, but I thought we still had time. I wasn’t ready to retire yet, my youngest granddaughter was only 2.”

Throughout his career, Tom milked 50 cows on average, while his wife, Karen, worked off-farm as a teacher, and later principal, of the local Catholic school, and helped on the couple’s farm near Thorp as needed. Tom began his dairy farming career in 1978, working alongside his father, before purchasing the farm after he and Karen married in 1979.

One thing Tom knew for certain when retirement came, he wanted to move from the farm.

“It was important to me to see the farm continue as a dairy farm,” Tom said. “I knew if we stayed for a length of time beyond the cows, the buildings would deteriorate and it would lose value as a dairy farm. I wanted to see cows there, and little kids running through the yard.”

The wheels of Tom’s preemptive retirement were set in motion in the fall of 2019, when he began experiencing shoulder issues.

“I thought if I got help and could rest my shoulder, it would get better and I could keep farming,” Tom said. “It didn’t get better and turned out that I had torn my rotator cuff.”

Facing surgery, the Lipinskis decided to sell the majority of the cows, keeping dry cows and youngstock, so Tom could return to milking following surgery.

“I thought I’d be able to coast through the next three years and reach my goal,” Tom said.

Tom prepared for the surgery, selling off the steers he was raising to reduce youngstock chores. The milking cows left Feb. 27, 2020, the day before his surgery.

Tom’s plan was to be shipping milk again within 60 days, before his state licensure lapsed.

The world had other plans.

“Then COVID hit and everything shut down,” Tom said. “All the dairies had too much milk — no one was going to want my milk because they had no place to go with it and they surely didn’t want to send a truck to pick up the small number of cows.”

Instead of picking up where he left off, Tom saw his 60-day window disappear.

“I was milking cows and trying to figure out what to do with it, dumping milk,” Tom said.

While Tom was uncertain of his future, he said God began prodding the Lipinskis down another path.

“We had our eyes open, looking for a long time, wondering what we wanted to do, where we wanted to go,” Karen said. “In our eyes, there weren’t many places that had the things we wanted: close to town but not in town; a little land; some woods and a stream. At the time, we didn’t have a clue what might come next.”

The Lipinskis believe God was at work in their lives when Karen happened upon what turned out to be the answer to their prayers — their dream home.

“Shortly before I fractured my hip, Karen saw the house on a Sunday evening,” Tom said. “We had a viewing Monday afternoon and immediately made an offer to purchase, which was accepted that night.”

A few days later, Tom’s dairy farming career came to a full close when he and his hired help repaired the track for the haymow door.

“I was still going to therapy for my rotator cuff, but I had been able to get all the crops in,” Tom said. “I built staging to work on the track — it wasn’t great, but I figured it would only be up about an hour. It came down, with me on it, an hour and five minutes later.”

Tom fell on the concrete below, fracturing his hip.

“When I came home from the hospital, I called the auction house and told them to come pick all the cows up — I knew we were going to be out for sure,” Tom said. “I watched the last of the cows loaded while I was on crutches.”

With a new house waiting for them, the Lipinskis continued in limbo.

“I hadn’t figured out what to do with the farm, and I hadn’t really accepted the end of my farming career,” Tom said.

After the final cows left, neighbors began inquiring about the farm. It was purchased by a neighbor with an adjoining farm, for his son to farm in the future. The Lipinskis scheduled a final farm auction in October, and a week later they made the move to their new home. The evening of the auction, Tom was presented an emotional gift: a canvas print of a photo of his beloved farm sitting beneath a full rainbow — a sign the Lipinskis saw as God fulfilling his promise to their family.

In their retirement, the Lipinskis found time to visit their family and take part in activities they enjoyed, but Tom felt a piece was still missing.

He learned of a need within the local fire and ambulance services and thought he could fill that need. Three years ago, he signed on to serve as both an ambulance driver and a tender truck driver.

“It was a need I could fill and it was the piece that really completed our retirement,” Tom said. “I like doing it, it fulfills me. I can stop what I’m doing and go on call.”

Through all the storms he weathered as a dairy farmer, having his career come to an end before he was ready was the most difficult, Tom said.

“God’s promise, that has been the focal point,” Tom said. “That rainbow told us that everything was going to be okay, that we just had to trust. How we got here is mind-boggling. It wasn’t luck, it wasn’t happenchance — it wasn’t anything other than providence.”