The Farmer and the Drought


The snow blew rapidly, big earth shattering snow flakes fell to the ground. But everyone could hear Lawrence the farmer and his gang of farming buddies on their shiny, well taken care of sleds, brappin’ away. That was the life of Lawrence during the winter when all he had to do on the farm was chores and manage the moo moos.
Lawrence was about average height, standing roughly six foot one inch and weighing close to two hundred pounds. He had jet black hair and had a slight hunch party due to the fact that he often times lifted heavy things.
He lived in Iowa with a omnipotent herd of roughly one hundred cows. He was twenty-seven years old living the party hardy bachelor life. Every morning, he would get up at four o’clock to milk the cows, and every night at four to do the evening chores. He kept the cows spotless and had a very nice free stall barn and a parlor to match. In addition, because of his somewhat large herd, he had a herdsman named Billy. Billy would always mix up the feed for the cows depending if they were fresh cows, in the high-grade group, or low-grade group. And every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, he would take care of the calves.

Every spring Lawrence would work up the fields. He had four-hundred acres of nice tillable land. He would plant two-hundred acres of corn to make silage, another hundred acres of hay, and one-hundred acres oats. Lawrence was a hard working man and completely self-sufficient. He never had to buy more feed for his herd and had only Billy as a helping hand. He believed in working hard to make money and make life easier in the end.

He had been farming ever since he was a kid with his father, older brother, and sister. He had bought the farm over just tow years earlier but had been pretty much taken it over when he was twenty-two after he graduated from college.
In his free time, he would hunt if time allowed, snowmobile in the winter, and party with his friends. He had a lifted 1500 Silverado with black on black exterior. It was a revelation that was a testament to the farm life.
He also had a nice sled that he went snowmobiling on. He liked snowmobiling a lot during the winter. It was his time to relax all winter because all he really had to do on the farm was milk and manage the herd.
The only problems Lawrence had to deal with was either to upgrade into robotic milkers or add to the herd. It was a nice life for him. What was there not to like for him?
However, like any farer he had his headaches. Mostly due to money. Being a farmer, you have to realize that you may spend a good portion of your life in debt. He had bought the entire farm and just bought a new John Deere tractor. However, that was not too hard of a concept to figure out as long as his cows were just fine. His cows were almost like his babies. Although they are incredibly stupid and often times break stuff, they were his family and made him lots of money. He tried his best to keep them clean by bedding them, giving them plenty of feed, and milking them with care. As long as his darlings were all right, his farm would be all right.
One year there was a nice winter. Lawrence snowmobiled plenty, often times putting on well over one hundred miles a day on his sled. He figured it would be a very nice year for his crops and ultimately for his farm. The ground thawed out at a good time in the year and he was outside almost all day and night. Often times eating, and sleeping, in his tractor. His new omnipotent John Deere had a Gps in it so he could set the coordinates for it to turn. After all his seed drilling, he hired some of his nephews and neighbors to help him pick rocks. He would always get good help and treat them well. He would never over work them, gave them plenty of water, and paid them handsomely.
Lawrence often times looked back at all the hardships in his life that made him the hard working man he is today. For example, when he was ten and his dad was doing the farming, they had a massive snowstorm. It was so bad that he could remember not seeing his hand that was right in front of his face. His father would tie a string from the front door of the house to the barn so they could find their way to and from the barn and the house.
“Come on Lawrence. It is time to do the chores,” he remembered his dad saying.
“But dad it is snowing so hard!” Lawrence would preach.
“Well do you think the cows will milk themselves?” His father replied.
Lawrence did not agree with his father at the time, but now that he thought back about it, he knew that is exactly what he would do in the same situation now. So he would wrap his hands around his dads waist and his dad would follow the rope to the barn, do the chores, and do the same thing back. It made Lawrence the man he was today, and proud of it.
Another time he would think of was when his father broke his leg when a bull charged at him. He was laid up for four months. Lawrence recalled when his father brought him into the living room.
He was lying on the couch, with three pillows stacked up under his head, “Lawrence it is up to you and your mother to do the chores and get those cows milked.”
This was when Lawrence was a little bit older, some where around the age of fourteen. Lawrence knew at that time that the cows needed to be milked for the sake of the farm and the family’s lives.
“Don’t sweat it dad, you can count on me to do that,” Lawrence exclaimed with a bit of pride in his voice. So, for the next four months, Lawrence took it upon himself to do the morning and evening chores. Once again, it was an obstacle in his life that he grabbed by the horns and surpassed it.
And although Lawrence had been through all these hardships in his life, he had never encountered what he would soon. He would encounter the worst feeling a proud, hard working famer can face, the feeling of being helpless.
That same year, it happened as most people would expect. Rain in April, and the crop grew very nicely in May. But come July, there had not been rain for all of June. Lawrence did not think much of it. He figured that eventually the rain would come. However, it never did.
One day, Billy just kind of joked, saying, “Hey Lawrence, think it will ever rain?”
Lawrence just gave a nervous laugh and went on with his chores. He knew that even if harvest was not as good as usual, had have plenty of silage an hay to make up for it.
However, it still did not rain a drop. Lawrence would take his four-wheeler down to his luscious, green meadow to see how his small creek was doing. To his surprise, it was bone dry.
As the days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to the middle of august, Lawrence’s crops were worthless. What had once been promising foot high corn stocks at the end of may, was now tow hundred acres of sand. His grass was so dried up, you could cut your feet for walking bare foot. But worst of all, Lawrence’s cows were suffering too. During evening chores he would take a hose and spray them with water to help them cool down. Then the county and Iowa whole put in water restrictions which prevented him for doing anything like that to save up on water.
To make things worse, he was finally running out of feed to give to the cows. He told Billy, his herdsman, to start cutting down on how many pounds of feed he should give each cow, and start limiting the hay he gave to the calves.
And due to all these restrictions, the cows were giving less and less milk. On average, every cow was giving a hundred pounds a day. Now, at best, an average cow was giving sixty pounds daily.
Lawrence was finally beginning to feel scared.
And then came September, Slowly but surely, Lawrence’s precious cows began to die. Mostly from lack of feed. Lawrence would walk into his free stall barn and see cows barely weighing six hundred pounds walking around aimlessly. His feed supply was completely out from the year before and he sure as hell was not getting anything from this year’s harvest. He sold his truck and sled to help pay for more feed.
The only thing left to do was to sell the farm. Although his father and totally against it, he knew too that it was for the best. So one day Lawrence went up to Billy and said, “Well we had a good run, but as you know the cows that are left will not last a whole lot longer.”
“I knew this day would come.” Billy replied.
And by December, the once nice size herd of a hundred and twenty cows, was down to sixty and sold to farms all over the mid west. Billy was working with a construction company so he could put his hard work ethic to use. Lawrence, was a mess however. He hated not being able to farm. And the best job he could find in a depression of this sort was stocking shelves at a local Coborn’s grocery store where he would work for the rest of his life.