After having felt the crush of 2024 in many areas of our life and career, I am trying to look forward with optimism. We have had the conversations about all the negative things about our last year. We lost a mother/grandmother, best friend, baby calves, felt many family health challenges and had a devastating drought. Our crops were a small fraction of what they should have been. There was just no rain for months.

We have had to make a conscious effort to recognize and be thankful for the positives in our life. Our kids have achieved and thrived in so many things. We have had the chance to spend some nice times together. We marked some significant farm items off our list last year.

My husband and I only had two cows this year as the cattle herd mostly belongs to the kids. Near the end of the year, we lost our oldest brood cow. While it was not a surprise at 16-18 years old, it was still a disappointment. Our other cow was thought to be pregnant at one point, but given the extreme summer heat and everything else that went wrong we were not sure she would calve.

However, only 4 days after our brood cow left us, we were blessed with a beautiful and healthy baby heifer! It was a delight that she was born without assistance, knew how to nurse, and was just generally healthy. When calves are born, there is generally great discussion about names. The kids have gone with themes and trends in the past. For some reason, there was really no discussion or mention of a name. Maybe it was because of so much loss, no one wanted to commit.

I had a realization one day that she had no name and I needed to remedy that. In the spirit of what we plan to be a better year, I named her Hope.