It’s back to school time

It’s back to school time. It’s also state fair time. Those two things don’t work very well when happening simultaneously; it’s unsurprisingly hard to be both in a classroom somewhere in Minnesota and in a livestock barn in St. Paul.

With a late Labor Day this year, a lot of kids are figuring out how to manage two big responsibilities at the same time, ours included. It’s good training for life as an adult, I guess. We could add a few more responsibilities for the full adulting experience. I forgot about sports; that’s probably enough for now.

My wife, Emily, is usually a chaperone for our county’s 4-H kids at the state fair. She loves helping out 4-H and corralling a bunch of rowdy kids each day. Our kids have a parent there the whole time to fall back on for any questions they have and to remind them they are supposed to have hay in front of their cattle at all times.

This year, Jonnie, Hannah and one of their friends decided to show dairy cattle in the FFA show. I guess five days there with 4-H wasn’t enough time in the dairy barn for them. They planned to tackle running a show string all on their own, and we just intended to come up to watch the show.

It didn’t work out quite as planned, as most things don’t. They originally wanted to haul the cattle up there themselves at 4 a.m. I remember doing that a couple times when I showed dairy in the open show. I’m not so excited to get to the fair early that I’d get up at 3 a.m. to load cattle nowadays, but I understand the appeal. I had to step in though and haul cattle up there for them because Jonnie got a surprise phone call last week that changed their plans. I didn’t haul them up there until 10 a.m. after milking and chores were done. They still got to manage the string on their own, though, and will hopefully load out and get them home safely on Monday. I’m quite proud of their independence, planning everything and caring for their cattle on their own.

The surprise phone call was from Dakota County Technical College. Jonnie had applied last year to enroll in the heavy construction equipment repair program through PSEO. PSEO stands for post-secondary enrollment option where kids can go to college their junior and senior years of high school, and the state covers the costs of tuition and books. The college doesn’t usually award PSEO students a place in high demand programs unless the class doesn’t fill up.

Jonnie didn’t hear from the DCTC in July or August, so he made plans to show cattle during 4-H and FFA. Then, he got a call halfway through the first day of school that someone didn’t show up and he could have their place if he got there and enrolled by the next morning.

We paused hauling manure and immediately hopped in the car to get him enrolled that afternoon. I went to school there for automotive technology and had a great experience, so I was almost as excited as him that he got a spot and would get to start college a year early.

Jonnie had to talk to the instructors and OK being gone for three days to show his cow he had a 4-H trip with. It turned out that one of his instructors grew up showing dairy in Wisconsin and was very supportive of him taking a couple of days to show cattle as long as he watched some videos about what they’d cover in the welding class. It was no problem catching up on the days he missed, but he was a little bummed he didn’t get to drive a bulldozer or road grader because that was what they did on the days he was gone.

Now that both kids are in school, all of us left at the farm will have to get used to having less help around. I guess taking care of chickens is back to us in the mornings. Until next time, keep living the dream, and good luck managing to be in two places doing five things at the same time. You probably need it.

Tim Zweber farms with his wife, Emily, their three children and his parents, Jon and Lisa, near Elko, Minnesota.