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As a young child living on a dairy farm, there was a particular phrase that would spark fear and dread deep in the recesses of my brain. A phrase that once yelled through the front door would start a cacophony of shrieks from one child to another. This would signify a calling of arms from all hands, no matter what vagaries an individual was engaged in. Those dreaded words were: “The cows are out!”

As a small family farm, this situation had a particularly unifying effect in that the reason for the cows being out was probably one of the five young Faber children. The suspect of such attrition would notably be put on trial but not until the last unruly cow had been firmly placed behind the closed gates.

Our father was a strong Christian man, with nary a foul word to ever be heard. I have seen him take a forceful blow of a hammer squarely on his thumb and walk away wincing while your author was complaining about blisters from multiple stray hammer swings. Yet, there is something about the sight of dairy cows running down the road that will test even the most upright and holy man's ability to control his tongue. Now would not be the time to point out that the tongue is a rudder to the ship and directs its path in life. I know this, now.

You see, some of the frustration of my father was also a knowledge of my mother’s coming indignation. My mother was also a godly woman, with a particular passion for flowers and her yard. A yard that was currently being trampled upon by free-range cattle that shouldn’t have been free range.

I would invariably come running out of the house in various stages of undress to gaze upon a barnyard that could only be described as Bovine Olympics. There would be cows running full tilt in a 100-meter sprint, a few more casual loafers doing the 400 meter and then the cows that were really pacing themselves for the marathon to go back to the farm they came from in Canada. In a particularly impressive display of bovine ingenuity, there were cows climbing small hills and launching themselves in what could only be described as literal ribeyes of the sky doing the long jump. It was in these moments where the tale of a cow jumping over the moon did not seem exceptionally contrived.

Also noteworthy would be the image of our cow dog, Axle, who was less of a cow dog and more of a fan of watching cows run. He would be firmly behind a cow encouraging her to run faster and farther than the cow even thought she was capable of. At this point, I can still hear my two younger sisters screaming at Axle. However, they were still struggling with an adolescent lisp and “Axle” sounds nothing like the name Axle when you have an adolescent lisp.

Our ode to Olympians was not defined by a season, however. One heifer, in a bid to avoid the canine terror that was Axle, spun around in perfect form three times for something that the figure skating world refers to as a triple sow cow – Google sow cow – that the figure skating world refers to as a triple Salchow. A form so exquisite that it would merit 7.5s from all the judges and a 9.5 from the Russian judge. What invariably would follow was a unified front of communication, comradery and peak physical effort that would make the hardiest of SEAL teams stand back in admiration.

Part of the motivation was fear and part was excitement on being able to pin this particular failure on a younger sibling for not closing and latching a gate. When the last cow had finally been secured back in the barn, we would all be standing as a family in the driveway. It was a sight to behold. Five children with cuts and bruises, covered in the shotgun blast of an errant cow who was slightly off feed and suffering from an errant cough. Gazing on the farmyard was a scene of complete bedlam. There would be parts of the driveway in the lawn and parts of the lawn in the driveway. Most all of it had been indiscriminately carpet bombed by cow pies. The worst of it was when I would glance side-eye at my mother’s flower bed and, sure enough, the dahlias and tulips had been reduced to green stems sticking out of the ground.

As the individual who was usually the responsible party for not closing the gate, I would like to think of these moments as fantastic team-building exercises. So, keep those gates latched, those dahlias in high places and remember that someday the hard times will be viewed as the best times.