“The cows are out!” Growing up on our family farm, there was no more effective way to catch my parents’ attention than by crying out this panic-striking phrase. These four powerful words could stop my mom in the middle of cracking an egg and make my dad spring from his easy chair as if the house were on fire.
That is exactly why it was one of my favorite April Fool’s Day pranks. Other than causing Mom and Dad mild heart attacks, it was a mostly harmless trick that left my siblings and I rolling with laughter. Results were best when precisely timed with trying to get out the door – or as late at night as possible.
Whether it was April 1 or any other day of the year, as a kid, I took full pleasure in pulling pranks on my family when we were all out in the barn for evening chores. After all, the three of us kids didn’t have our own iPads and cell phones for entertainment, and I didn’t have the patience to fight with my brother for my turn to play Tetris on the family Game Boy. Thus, I had to find other ways to entertain myself.
One of my favorite jokes involved a Halloween face mask that looked like something off of The Walking Dead. I would lurk in a dark corner in the manger or between a couple of cows, jumping out with a “Rah!” to scare the bejeebers out of whichever poor soul crossed my path.
Pulling the perfect prank was all about knowing your target’s greatest weakness. For my sister, that was her fear of mice. One evening, while I was shoveling corn silage, out from the auger fell the bloody, mangled grand-daddy of them all.
Clearly, this rodent had been living the high life in the silo before his untimely death because his length and girth rivaled that of a New York City sewer rat. So, I scooped him up with my shovel and waited.
Just as my sister came waltzing down the barn alley, I launched the vermin right at her. She screamed and ran for her life out of the barn. Looking back, that may explain why my siblings didn’t like to help me with chores.
These days, however, my trips back home to the family farm aren’t laughing matters. Our conversations take a serious tone as we bridge the topics of estate planning and farm transition.
I have sat through seminars given by the best attorneys in the business and quoted them in countless articles; yet, when these situations involve my own family, it’s like hearing it all for the very first time.
But if there is one thing I have learned from listening to stories from other families, it is that failure to plan is planning to fail. My parents’ wishes for what is to become of their lives’ work and our century-old family farm will never be realized if we don’t sit down now and have the difficult talks – even though it is uncomfortable, scary and emotional.
It’s hard to imagine that someday, there will be no cows to get out. Some day, that big red two-story barn that raised cows, calves and kids will be empty, but it will forever echo with the laughter and memories of jokes, pranks and good times. PD
Peggy Coffeen
Midwest Editor
Progressive Dairyman
