I meant it as a joke.
I had no idea I’d repeated almost exactly what Dad had written in a letter I’d discover months later.
—
The following morning, reality caught up with me.
I owned forty cows.
I’d started the herd years earlier with six bred heifers Dad sold me at cost.
For more than two decades, those animals had grazed his creek pasture during summer and fed on his cornstalks through winter.
That had always been our arrangement.
I worked the farm.
Dad paid me wages.
And I used his pasture for my cattle.
But now the land belonged to Phil.
I couldn’t assume the arrangement would continue.
So I hooked up my livestock trailer and began moving the animals to my property.
Eight cows at a time.
It was calving season, the worst possible time to move them.
But I didn’t see another choice.
