Time Out!
Many of you know I grew up on a farm in central Pennsylvania. While I chose early in life not to make agriculture my vocation, my sister, Audrey Gay Rodgers, did select agriculture — with a twist — for her life’s work. She has the Hameau Farm Camp for girls where every summer girls ages 8-14 experience farm life. Gay has a herd of Ayrshire cows, an old line breed that originated in Scotland that is reddish brown and white, compared to the black and white Holstein breed.
To be helpful to my sister, and to have a little fun for our kids and now our grandchildren, I purchased a bred heifer named Nanley last May from the Huntington family farm in Vermont. Neal Huntington, the General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and I have been friends for the past two years, and our fathers have been friends for the past 40 years, both having top Ayrshire herds. Last week, Nanley gave birth to a heifer calf, which in the farming community is good news because it is a female and is of higher value because of its milking potential.
The big family challenge over Thanksgiving weekend was to name the new heifer calf. Since its mother’s name was Nanley, a long-standing farm tradition dictated the baby heifer’s name should also begin with an “N.” Nessie was the winning name, however, a close second came from my two-year-old granddaughter, Reagan, who wanted to name the heifer Night Night Doggie after her bedtime stuffed animal.
The fun we had in arriving at Nessie reminded me of Dale Carnegie’s principle, “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” I’m not sure if it applies to cows, though Gay is convinced it does. Either way, I do know names are pure gold when it comes to connecting with and serving people.
Onward,
John Rodgers