So true, I sometimes quip that growing up shoveling manure on our family dairy farm was excellent preparation for the corporate world I now work in. This life is so much easier, everyday, I'm warm and dry.

The image of Blaske on the farm, illuminating the darkness, is a powerful one. “Sometimes the batteries were low and the light was not so bright,” he wrote, “But when you found the cow that was missing, you also found a newborn calf, which made the dark of night much brighter.”

Winter was the worst, fumbling around in the dark, the mud, the cold. Miserable existence.