(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today)

Springtime is freedom time down on the farm.

All winter long, the holstein calves are penned up in the barn.  When warm weather rolls in, it’s time to turn them out and let them enjoy the great outdoors

The calf pens on our farm were in a long, low lean-to on the south side of our barn.  Each fall we prepared them for winter arrival of the calves.  Fences and windows were repaired or replaced, and the pens were cleaned and lined with fresh straw.

Throughout the winter additional straw was added to keep the calves warm and dry, and on milder days we would open the windows and pitch out some of the manure into a  waiting manure spreader

Getting the calves outside in the spring is not as easy as it sounds.

Remember, these calves plopped out of the womb into the cold and dirty world of the barn.  They went from the soft, dark apartment-like uterus to a cruel world of manure gutters and dirt teats.  Then, just when they were getting the hang of jumping across the gutters and started thinking barn life wasn’t so bad, they were forced to change again.

They were taken from their mothers and placed with other calves in a pen.  There they were weaned from an on-demand diet of mom’s milk to a twice-a -day feeding of powdered milk, generically referred to a “milk replacer.”

Then we had the nerve to wonder, “Why don’t these calves want to go outside?”  A little thought would have revealed why these tiny bovines had leaned to resist change.

The first tactic we use is the “scare-them-out” method.  We would open the doors and chase them around the pen while screaming and yelling like deranged idiots.

We usually were able to dislodge one or two with this method.  We were left with 12 mildly excited calves who looked at us with bemused expressions while we panted and wheezed.

We would then resort to the “ease-them-out” tactic.  My dad, my brothers and I would form a line and quietly “shush” the calves up to the door.  The calves would nervously glance from us to the open door, trying to decide which was worse.

Again, one or two would make the leap.  The others would panic at the last moment and run around, between or over us.  The result: two calves outside, 10 thoroughly paranoid calves inside, one little brother bawling in the house with hoof prints on his chest and the rest of us completely disgusted and splattered with manure.

Our next strategy, my favorite, was the “let’s go eat lunch and see if the rest of them go out by themselves” tactic.  This method was our most successful.

Finally, we would return, and only one or two stubborn calves would remain.  With ropes and levers and brute strength we would remove the balking, bawling calves.

Once outside, the calves would huddle in a group.  It was as if some primal instinct told them to huddle like yaks in order to ward off the wolves.  They would curiously look around, blinking in the bright sunshine, sniffing the strange smells of grass and flowers on the spring air.

Then one brave calf would venture from the group.  You can almost hear him thinking.  “Hey, this pen is a lot bigger,” and, “This green stuff stuck in the ground tastes pretty good,” and finally, “There’s enough room out here to kick up my heels! Mooooo!”

With that said, the rest of his buddies would join in cavorting around the pasture.

Watching those calves experienced the wonder of springtime made all the work of getting them there worthwhile.