Farmalls, Blue Heelers, and Memories of Winters Past

The Facebook photo caption read something like: “You think we’re having a winter? This is what a real winter looks like! Photo was taken in 1979.”

The picture was of a bulldozer trying to clear snow from some railroad tracks. I say “trying” because the situation looked hopeless. Towering drifts on both sides of the tracks made the dozer look like a toy. The snowbanks nearly reached the tops of the trackside utility poles.

The winter of ’79 is burned into my memory for a couple of reasons. First is that it’s among the coldest and snowiest winters I’ve ever endured. Second is that it was a formative time for me, the year that brought the launch of my dairy farming career.

I was milking 30 Holsteins twice a day in a rickety old dairy barn and had assembled a small but decrepit lineup of farm machinery. I should have been happy, but it felt as though something was missing. So, I got a dog.

In early March, I adopted a Blue Heeler puppy named Sam. Despite being just a 6-pound ball of gray and tan fur when I got him, Sam soon established the pecking order on our farm: I was Sam’s boss, and Sam was the boss of everybody else.        

There was one exception. Sam thought it was great sport to chase the barn cats I’d inherited from the farm’s previous tenant. One morning, he pranced up to an old mother cat, expecting her to vamoose so he could give chase. The mother cat sat, unperturbed, as Sam edged closer and closer. When Sam got within a few inches, she coolly reached out a paw and planted a set of razor-sharp claws in his snout. She released him only after he had emitted what she deemed to be an acceptable number of whimpers. He never bothered her again.

Blue Heelers are known to be one-man dogs. This is especially true when there’s only one man. Sam shadowed me everywhere, wearing a look that seemed to say, “What are we doing next? Can I help? Can I?”

The only time he would leave my side was when I needed assistance with moving cattle. I would point at a laggard bovine and quietly tell Sam, “Sic ‘em.” He would rocket off and nip the targeted cow’s heels, an expression of pure delight on his face.

Winter roared in during the third week of November, announcing its arrival with howling northwest winds, blinding snow, and windchills that made Antarctica seem warm by comparison. Just as important as moving snow so I could feed my cows, was clearing the farm’s driveway so the milk truck could collect my herd’s product. What was the point of it all if it all went down the drain?

The first challenge was starting my loader tractor, a WW II-era Farmall M. The weatherbeaten tractor had a six-volt battery. This meant that I had approximately six seconds worth of cold cranking before the battery died.

Starting the M the morning after the blizzard involved a lot of moaning and growling and coughing. The tractor made some weird noises too.

Once I got the M going and the cows fed, I was faced with the overwhelming task of clearing a path for the milk truck. A boundless range of mountainous snowdrifts had taken over the driveway, which had been a quarter of a mile long, but now appeared to stretch for several miles.

But there was no choice other than to tackle the Sisyphean endeavor. I soon began to feel chilly, despite wearing nearly every stitch of clothing I owned. Few things are colder than sitting on an open platform tractor with the mercury hovering at -20°F and the wind shrieking at 35 mph.

The wind was my sworn enemy. By the time I had hacked a path to the end of the driveway, the gales of November had started to fill it back in.

Sam, ever faithful, had dogged along by the tractor the whole time. The cold didn’t seem to bother him in the least. I began to wish that I had also been blessed with a thick fur coat. My patchy chest hair had proven woefully inadequate.

Mission accomplished, I went into the old farmhouse to thaw out. Some while later I glanced out the window to see Sam scampering playfully up and down a snow pile. Satisfied that he had conquered the mountain of white, he sat on its summit and surveyed his domain.

That day had been a bone-chilling experience. But it was worth it to watch Sam as he demonstrated how to find joy in the simple things of life.

Jerry’s book, “Dear County Agent Guy” can be found at www.workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.