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Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Flashlight





In her job as a milk inspector, Liz visits many farms each day. A number of her farmers are Amishmen. Such was the case one day last week when she stopped to perform a routine inspection. As she checked out things in the milk house, she observed a grain truck blowing corn meal into an overhead bin in the barn but didn't pay too much attention.

When she finished in the milk house she pushed open the door into the stable to check on things there.

The door was wedged almost completely shut. She crawled through into the stable to see what was wrong. Corn meal was falling from the open bottom of the grain bin chute and had piled up against the door. The farmer's mules had pulled the chute open with their teeth. Thus as the trucker blew the grain into the bin it flowed down onto the stable floor below, right in front of the cows, horses and mules.

She tried to get the trucker's attention but he couldn't hear her over the noisy truck.

So she climbed up on a cow stall and hammered the chute shut herself, twisting her back in the process.

Then, because the animals were eating the feed as fast as they could gobble, she raced to find the farmer.

He was not at home, but she knew he farmed with his brother, so she drove down to his house and roused him instead. Kids with shovels were just climbing into her truck to go sort out the mess, when the missing farmer arrived driving his horse and buggy.

She said he left her truck in the dust, pounding down the road to his barn to save his livestock from overeating on the rich corn meal. Those standardbreds can fly when they want to.

She offered to help with the clean up, but he thanked her over and over and said that she had done enough just closing the bin and running for help. At least a ton of corn meal had spilled onto the floor but that much again had been saved by her quick actions.

At home that night she realized that somewhere in all the excitement she had lost the fancy little flashlight she uses to check the inside of milk pipes and such. She figured that it was gone forever somewhere in the mess of corn meal at the farm.

However, a few days later our milk truck driver dropped it off right in our milk house. The Amish farmer had found it and made sure to send it home on the truck so she would have it if she needed it (he has the same driver as we do.)

When she turned it on she noticed that it was brighter than it had been....the batteries had been going a bit dead...so she popped it open....and there was a set of brand new batteries.

11 comments:

Linda said...

Kudos to Liz! It was nice of the man to make sure she got her flashlight back and even better than when she'd dropped it.

Earl said...

Nice bright picture, and even better story. Thanks, alot. Will go and start the morning now.

wv ingstish (must be a new philosophy I am liv"ing".

Jacqueline Donnelly said...

Good story! It's nice to know that some good deeds do get rewarded. Hope Liz's back is better.

Anonymous said...

Good on her. She and the others proved there are still good people in the world. Just my observation, but seems like there are more than their fair share involved in some aspect of the Ag industry.

CTG Ponies said...

Good for her!!

lisa said...

Good for Liz! She is one hard working gal!

Cathy said...

This just makes me so happy. These are the stories you don't hear about in the news. Good decent people doing good.

I'm not surprised to hear that one of yours is capable, hard-working and fast on her feet.

Hope her back is OK.

Sandcastle Momma said...

Good job Liz!!! Sorry about the back though.

threecollie said...

Linda, thanks on her behalf. It was so cool when she dropped the batteries out in her hand and realized that they were new ones. What a nice thing for the Amishman to do.

Earl, thanks, hope all is well with you!

WW, she is fine now, although she was pretty ouchy for a couple of days.

JB, man, do I ever agree with you! Look how it is when someone has a bad happen and need help on a farm or ranch. Where else would every neighbor for miles around, sometimes even strangers, turn out and help like they do? During the recent spate of barn collapses here in the NE HUNDREDS of folks showed up to shovel roofs and clean up messes.

CTG, thanks, it was so neat

Lisa, thanks she is

Cathy, thanks, she is fine now...just sore for a couple of days. She is only a little taller than I am and it was a reach.

SCMomma, thanks, she is all good now.

Ericka said...

great story - thanks for sharing.

the thing with decent people doing decent things is that, for most people, it's standard operating procedure and not something to talk about... which means that we hear way more about the bad than the good. sigh.

threecollie said...

Ericka, you are right about that.