"Forget about all that Macho Shit and Learn to Play the Guitar"

A Guest Column by Seth Watkins

BY SETH WATKINS

GUEST COLUMNIST

SETH WATKINS is the fourth generation of his family to care for Pinhook Farm. Located in Southwest Iowa, the farm was established by Seth’s great grandfather in 1848. Today Pinhook Farm is home to a herd of Angus cattle, several hives of honey bees, a few chickens, and a recently acquired flock of Katahdin sheep. Seth attributes Pinhook Farm’s success to prioritizing stewardship over production by striving to build a system that works with nature. In addition to caring for livestock, Seth is a TedX speaker, serves as a United Nations Food Systems Champion, and is a part of a National Science Foundation funded program called BlueGAP that is working to help communities address nitrogen pollution.

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Forget about all that macho shit and learn how to play guitar” is a great line from John Mellencamp’s song “Play Guitar.” The lyrics always remind me that kind and gentle are far more powerful than force, anger, and fear…

I thought of Mellencamp’s wisdom the other morning while walking one of my cows to the barn to be treated for a rectal prolapse. While rare, prolapses happen. The cow A012 is 14 years old, (in the cattle business we use letters to designate birth year). The letter A tells me she was born in 2011. More than likely her age contributed to the medical issue. At that moment, the cause was not relevant. What mattered to me was that she was in distress and needed immediate treatment.

The challenge I faced was that my patient was a 1,350-pound creature with a strong herd instinct that was about a mile from the barn where I had facilities to treat her. My options were: 1.) Rope her and drag her away from the herd… traumatic and dangerous. 2.) Bring the entire herd to the barn and sort her out… time-consuming, labor-intensive, and causes undo stress for the rest of the herd. Or 3.) Lead her to the barn for treatment… quiet, safe, and efficient.

Now any decent cowboy or cowgirl has the skills to rope, sort, and drive cattle. These skills are important, but any hand worth their salt will tell you that gentle, quiet, and kind is the best way to handle livestock. This was how I was able to lead A012 to the barn for treatment this morning.

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Click on the image below to watch the video of me leading A012 away from her herd to the barn for treatment. (It was a proud moment…)

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No “Macho Shit” here, just a farmer and his border collie leading a cow to the barn. No stress to man or beast. In just over an hour A012 was treated (the best way to work cattle fast is to go slow) and resting in a hospital pen, where she could receive extra TLC and be expected to make a full recovery.

I don’t have much formal education. This probably shows in my writing and grammar, but you can learn a lot on a farm. Bringing A012 to the barn reminded me that many citizens and elected officials in our Country are struggling to understand the difference between leading and driving. We are seeing people being driven by force and fear. This doesn’t make us better. Real leadership requires compassion, understanding, and trust

There was a time that I could not have led a cow down the road like I did with A012 this morning. I would have had to rope her and drag her out of the pasture or chase her away from the herd, cursing, and driving her down the road.

This thinking is driven by the misconceived notion that the ability to instill fear or put a square peg in a round hole is somehow a sign of strength and leadership ability. The reality is that cattle, just like us, seldom forget or react well to trauma. While I might have accomplished the task at hand, I also would have set the stage to make things more difficult the next time.

Real Leadership is not about force, fear, and noise. It’s about trust, empowerment, and investing in ourselves and others.

Leading A012 to the barn took time and investment. Starting with me trusting my own heart telling me that the macho shit doesn’t work. It required me investing in myself to study stockmanship skills. https://stockmanship.com is my favorite source. This means learning how cows think and react…empathy. It required investment in infrastructure and facilities, so the cattle feel safe and secure when coming to the barn. It’s taken investments in consistency; being there for the cows at the same time every day to make sure their needs are met. Trust like this doesn’t happen overnight. But quietly and efficiently leading A012 to the barn makes the investment worth it.

Helping A012 this morning was a wonderful reminder to me that “Macho” doesn’t work. Kind, gentle, and thoughtful are what gets the job done. These values are not weak. They are strong, smart, efficient, and profitable.

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Thanks to Seth Watkins for this powerful column.

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In these troubled times, if you work in the Trump administration, or here in Iowa, the Reynolds administration, and have a story you want to tell about the impacts of their policies, I welcome you to tell your story anonymously if you need to be protected. If you want to tell it to me in an interview, I’ll record the audio and change your voice, or just provide a transcript. Just email me at rdwleonard@gmail.com. I won’t give you up.

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