Why Don't They Have Barns?

So, the other night my friends and I were all just sitting around talking, watching the snow fall outside and definitely enjoying the fact that we weren’t in it… I said something about how the farmers in Western Kansas/Eastern Colorado had lost about 400 head of cattle or more (that’s over 400 cows) due to the large ice/snow storm we had in December. I was saying it for sympathy, for the plight of those poor farmers, but apparently everyone else found it funny… funny because we “don’t have barns” for our cows. No, we don’t have barns because our cows are range (read, beef) cows, not dairy cows. They don’t need barns, they do just fine in the pastures. The reason the last storm was so devastating was because we had inches of ice and then three feet of snow in a few hours and the farmers couldn’t get to the cows to feed or water them due to the conditions of the road. For those of you who don’t know, Kansas does not get that much snow during the year, much less from one storm, so it was really unexpected. Generally, cows can handle cold weather, ice, and snow, but not that much of it that quickly. Anyways, I don’t know why it bothered me so much, it just did. I was concerned for the farmers and the economy because it’s very hard to come back from a loss that big, but all they could think about was the fact that we didn’t have barns for our cows. I guess it depends on how close to home things hit as to whether or not you find them serious and something to think about, or funny…as my friends apparently did.

I went to inservice yesterday for student teaching. It was really fun trying to get there in 4 inches of snow! We just got the class lists and the seating charts set up. We had a faculty meeting and I met a ton of people I’m not going to remember…. I officially start tomorrow, and I start teaching Romeo and Juliet on Monday. I’m kind of excited because I think my lessons are really fun and interesting, but kind of worried because I’m not sure how the students are going to react. My teacher sometimes makes it sound like they’re all just stupid and that I’m going to have to go slow or “dumb down” my lessons… Sometimes it gets to me how negative teachers are about their students. I feel like we should always be looking for the positive and trying to help them succeed however we can, not focus on what they CAN’T do. Maybe that’s just me talking through my naivety, but I still think there has to be some positive to outweigh all the negative that I hear.

Today is an “off” day, though I do have to go tutor and get some more R&J handouts and planning done. Should be fun, I guess we’ll see what tomorrow brings!