Stories - Lifestyle

The Home Setting

Dad purchased 4.5 acres and had a hobby farm for his children to learn and enjoy the subtlies he knew. Dad grew up on a farm that marked the period just after the depression era when electricty and indoor plumbing gradually made it to every house in America. He enjoyed husbandry and always, when possible, put a few heads of livestock to graze the pasture and keep it clean.

Lost Sheep

One year the neighbor's dog chased about eight heads of sheep out of the pasture. The sheep were able to jump the fence to flee from the dog. Dad was gone and returned home after dark. Upon Dad's return home, I asked him if he were going to go and look for his lost sheep, in the dark. He said he was going to bed. In the morning he got up to go and check on his sheep and to count them. He came back in the house and reported that all of the sheep were there. I asked him how he knew they would come back. What happened?

Then Dad recited a few lines from a nursery line. "Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep and doesn't know where to find them. Leave them alone and they'll come home, wagging their tails behind them."

The West Pasture and Sheep

Sirloin's in My Logo

Sirloin, a steer my father had, which did eventually end up in Dad's freezer, would walk over electric fences without being jolted. The solution my father found was to put high fence posts in cement, with welded cut pipe at the top of the posts to run a 1/2" steel cable through them (size is my estimate). Dad tightened the cable with a come-along. Then he put a chainling fence along the posts and wired the top of the chainling to the cable. (I'm not sure if he did it along the bottom as well. The property has been sold and I can't go look.) That fence worked. The only other weak point was the gate. People had to remember to close it when passing through it.

During a Utah drought, in late summer, Dad went out to the south east fence line to fortify it, using his welder to repair-build the fence. The sparks from the welding jumped into the dry grass and went ablaze. Dad was running the sprinklers and had a hose to spray down fires should they start, however, someone called the fire department when things appeared to be out of control. Mom asked me to take Dad a lunch with water; and to take pictures of the damage.

The city had purchased the property over the fenceline, a ravine, for water retention and full of uncut, dry grass. Earlier that morning I had seen Sirloin in that ravine, walking through high grasses next to a creek that ran through both properties, southward. As I left Dad his lunch, I looked northward and saw Sirloin, begging at the bottom branches of the apricot tree, to eat any of the golden fruits he could reach. Snap! I took a few snapshots.

In Misty Miller's Facebook group, I shared a photo of Sirloin in a pre-logo design. People could not tell that Sirloin was a steer. Someone even said they wondered if Sirloin were a sea lion, grazing on seaweed. Hence, I traced the apriocot tree and Sirloin, adding horns to Sirloin so his identiy as a bovine became more clear.

Other stores on Teacher's Pay Teachers, more commonly will have a picture of the shop owner, or something that illustrates the shop's name. I know I may feel like a cow at times, but I love Sirloin's free spirit of curiousity and adventure, who also reminds me of my father who did what he could to solve his problems.