Season of silence

A blanket of snow wraps our farmyard in a new season. Sitting at my desk, the bright sunshine gives me a false sense of warmth outside my window. The subzero temperatures have brought a season of silence to our farmyard.

Gone is the echo of a maul breaking barn cleaner as it fights to free itself from a frozen grip. The sputtering of a tractor trying to ignite a spark in a cold engine is reserved for another day. There are no barns to clean today. Our warm fingers rejoice at the thought of losing this job.

Mark does fire up the Bobcat every day to haul a couple of buckets of feed to the youngstock still in our care. A trail of exhaust follows him around the yard as he delivers the haylage. The silence of the yard is broken by the lone engine moving about the yard.

The youngstock also need some corn silage to eat, so Mark flips the switch on the silo unloader, bringing a familiar sound to the yard. Mark has rediscovered why we never used the northern silo to feed cattle in the winter over the years: It catches the brunt of the north winds. The unloader struggles to find its grip in the frozen feed and struggles to throw enough out. Of course, it would help if there weren’t a hole just big enough to plug up the unloader. Thankfully, all the problems are located at the bottom of the silo, and Mark does not have to climb to the moon and back several times in order to open things up once again.

The silence of the milk pump is the most notable. The steady hum setting the rhythm of the day is gone. As I fed calves, I always listened for the milk pump to let me know if I was on time or a bit late with chores. Once the barn was empty and the pump shut down, I had to switch to feeding the milk replacer to the remaining calves.

I didn’t realize how freeing it is to feed milk replacer over bucket milk. I can feed anytime I want. I don’t have to wait for the guys to start milking. I can feed more to my schedule than theirs. I am not tied to the sound of the milk pump calling me to work.

A few days before our sale, the last Holstein heifer calf to be born on our farm arrived. This special calf needed a special name that would bring a quick smile to our faces while signaling the end of an era, the closing of the milking barn doors for this generation. Her mom’s name was Skittles and there is only one word starting with “Sk” that we could use: Skedaddle.

As Mark was blowing out the snow the other day, he discovered how quickly she can skedaddle. The cold temperatures made the domes a bit brittle, and he accidentally put an extra hole in the dome. She shot through it as quickly as the snow through the blower. Mark eventually caught up with her in the woods. Luckily, she was hungry and curious enough to come up to him for capture. He announced that she is now broken to lead as he brought her back home to her dome.

From my desk, I see the milk truck heading north for his next pickup. A twinge hits my heart as I realize the sound of the milk truck shifting down is now silent. As he climbs the hill, he keeps pushing forward past our driveway, a trail of exhaust fumes marking his path on a cold winter morning to his next pickup. The sound of snow crunching under the weight of his tires as he pulls into our yard is now silent.

Even though the yard is quiet, we will still keep up our tradition of tucking in our animals on Christmas Eve. All the animals will have an extra layer of fresh bedding and an extra scoop of feed. The barn cats will find plenty of open stalls to safely snuggle and a warm pail of leftover milk replacer milk. Bailey will find a special treat waiting for her by her bedding in the garage.

This might be the first year we do not set anything out specifically for Santa’s reindeer, but there is always a spare bale of hay by the barn he can pull up to if they need to recharge. The silence in the house this winter is making it a bit hard to capture the feeling of the season. I busted the tree stand last year and have not replaced it yet, so there is not a real push to find the perfect tree.

My idea of a perfect tree is not like everyone else’s. I’m always drawn to the Christmas trees that are shoved in the back of the barn because they are not quite perfect. You know the ones — Misshapen branches, two different tops, bare spots … a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Over the years, Mark, the kids and I have wandered through snowdrifts to find a perfect tree on pivot corners or in farm ditches. The trees may be imperfect in shape and style, but perfect in memories retained in the recesses of our life stories. The kids can retell the stories of trekking for trees and recall with clarity the unique trees standing silently in the corner of the living room.

In the silence of the night, shepherds heard the angels announce the arrival of Christ in a stable.

In the silence of a manger, a baby is surrounded by the joyful praises of quiet hearts. In the silence of our hearts, we feel the love of God wrapping us in his loving arms as we pass through the season of silence.

As their four children pursue dairy careers off the family farm, Natalie and Mark Schmitt started an adventure of milking registered Holsteins just because they like good cows on their farm north of Rice, Minnesota.