by Beverly Cook

Created on: May 29, 2008   Last Updated: August 02, 2009

We have always lived on a farm. When I received the greatest present ever, I was going to college at night and raising four children. My husband was a truck driver, so my children and I took care of the cattle we raised.

I was at school one evening and it so happened that we were talking about this subject during our break. Some of the women had said that they got all different kinds of jewelry, or cruises, or many other things of this nature. When I was asked what the best gift I had received from my husband was, I laughed and said," A bale unroller." They said," A what?" I said," Yes a bale unroller."

I had to explain what it was and why I thought it was such a great gift. It is a piece of equipment put on the back of a tractor that you use to unroll a big round bale of hay.

The reason it was so great to me was because before I was taking a bale to the top of a hillside in southwest Missouri and pushing it down the hillside to unroll. As I was doing this I had cows milling all around me. Sometimes I got stepped on and truthfully it was not so much fun. It was a lot of work, and hard work at that.

My husband came home one evening and said," You will never believe what I brought home from town today." "I asked what and he told me." I was so happy! Before when I had to feed the cows it took quite a long time especially if the bale was hard to unroll. With my new present it only took a short time to unroll so that all the cows could get to the feed.

When I told this at school all the ladies laughed. My teacher told me that only I would be happy with something like that.

I am not sure how many of you are familiar with farm life, but most women don't wear much jewelry. It is extremely easy to lose it in the dirt, mud, and other places that we have to go on a daily basis.

Farm people really don't do much for vacations because farming is a twelve month a year job. You put up hay and feed in the summer so that you can feed it to the livestock in the winter. So vacations are a hurry up occasion between farm jobs if you can squeeze it in somewhere. So my greatest gift was something very special to me because it made my job on the farm much easier. It also allowed me more time to spend with my children. That is something that I treasure.

The gift may seem silly to some of you, but each time I put a bale of hay on the unroller and went out to feed the cows and watched the bale being unrolled, I thought of my husband and how much I loved him. The job that had taken close to one hour each day, now took me about fifteen minutes. I was safely perched upon the tractor seat where I wasn't being worried about the cows knocking me down and trampling on me. I was always afraid that if I got hurt what would my children do. That was a big worry that had been eliminated for me.

As I was going to college this piece of equipment saved me time, and now I had more time to spend on homework. I was also substitute teaching five days a week. This gave me more time that I desperately needed.
My children and I have always been very close and my greatest gift ever helped us stay that way.

I guess as the old saying goes, " God made us all different, and isn't it wonderful that we all like different things. Wouldn't it be boring if we all liked the same thing.

Now you know the greatest gift that I have ever had.

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