Exciting times!

Mike and I are blessed to have our daughter, Emilie, interested in carrying on the family heritage of being a beef cattle producer.  She is following in the footsteps of her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, and I’m sure even earlier ancestors who provided for their families in the 1800s and late 1700s as they settled in southeastern Pennsylvania by farming and raising livestock for food.

Bringing in the future isn’t always easy.  We have to work at making sure Emilie’s ideas and aspirations are included in our decision-making.  Stepping out of the parental role and into the partner role takes effort that our busy schedules don’t always have time for.  Instead, we fail to communicate or even worse, argue, as we try to blend her energetic ideas into our three decades of set-in-our-ways farming philosophies and experience.

Earlier this year, I signed up for a multi-week Extension education session on succeeding at farm transitions in order to assist in my role as Berks County's agricultural coordinator.  I soon discovered the theme of this seminar in the 21st century had not changed from the numerous meetings I had covered on estate planning when I served as editor for Lancaster Farming back in the 1980s, except for some law changes.  Keeping a farm in the family is not easy, whether the issue is federal and state taxes or fairly turning it over to children who want to farm.  Twenty years ago I was an observer in this dilemma.  Today I am a participant in the process.

Although Mike and I are not ready to retire from farming, we realize that this is a golden opportunity to bring Emilie into the operation.  Like other farm families, we wrestle with how to incorporate her interests and talents into our long-range management plans.  At the same time, we are not ready to turn over all the decision-making duties.  We are proud of her accomplishments and she has benefitted from the lessons we shared with her throughout her youth.  We just aren’t ready to let go and give her free rein.

I keep replaying some of the advice I heard during the Extension course, and we are trying to incorporate some of the suggestions.  For instance, we are giving Emilie the opportunity to renovate the stable area of our 1880s standard Pennsylvania barn to become a more modern layout for raising show cattle.  My only request is that the historic timbers of this special structure be treated with respect and unaltered by her remodeling.

Both her dad and I assisted in tearing out old wooden pens that were added to the barn in the 1960s.  The previous owners had taken out the original stanchions and mangers to raise pigs and steers.  The only visible reminder that the barn had once housed dairy cattle was the manure gutter running the length of the stable area.  Emilie enlisted the help of our talented neighbor who poured and shaped concrete, filling in the gutters and blending the stable floor to the walkway.  So far, so good.

The worst job was removing a dropped ceiling that served as a pigeon and rodent hideaway and had gathered droppings and dust for many decades.  Masks and goggles couldn’t keep the years of accumulated dirt from infiltrating our eyes, ears and noses.  We were thrilled when only one more panel remained for Mike’s nail bar and muscle.

With a deliberate yank, Mike ducked as the panel began to fall and he was showered by debris.  At the same time, I caught sight of a shower of sparks emanating from above the final panel.  Yelling a warning to stop, I shouted to Mike that he must be hitting an electrical wire.  He jumped off the ladder to turn off the power to the line.  When he resumed his attack, sparks flew more furiously than the first time.  I screamed and raced toward the potential fire hazard.

I managed only a single stride and my foot caught on the bottom wooden pen rail remained fastened.  In the excitement, I had forgotten that it stood in my way.  I found myself crashing onto the board I had just torn off its post, nails protruding dangerously toward me.  Pain seared through my knee and ribs as I finally quite falling.  Emilie wasn’t sure who to run to first.  As she helped me push off the board, I focused on the far end of the barn and worried that Mike might electrocute himself or inadvertantly set the entire barn on fire.  Fortunately, he was already out the door and heading for the house to turn off the breaker to the barn.

As we dusted off and cleaned up from the dirty ordeal, we were grateful that the damage to our barn and our bodies was relatively minor.  The nail wounds and bruises I inflicted on myself weren’t serious, and Mike wasn’t shocked by the faulty old wiring.  Our barn was still standing.  The stable’s facelift was proceeding on schedule, being readied for new pen panels, finding a new purpose for a new generation of cattle producers.  It is an exciting time.
  
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