As college students, we often find ourselves in awkward conversations in public. Whether it be our hungover friends telling us drunken stories, our roommates reminding us of the strange noises creeping into our rooms from the frat guys above us or how the college struggle is real because “adulting” is hard. There is no escaping it. There will always be awkward conversations and someone is always going to hear it. It may be the 3 year old picking his nose while staring at you over the booth or an old lady innocently trying to get her grocery shopping done. Either way, they heard you.
Of all the awkward conversations in the average college students have nothing can compare to those that college “farmers” have. In our learning days, we often get excited about the little things. How many calves were born that week (every gross detailed included). How many cows we had to palpitate that day. Or my personal favorite what semen other farmers are using to AI.
As I was sitting at dinner with some of my closest friends tonight, I noticed it. As I stuck my hand over the table, (to prove my arm was hardly long enough to reach the cervix of a Holstein cow) I realized how wrong it was to be having this conversation, with these words, in a public restaurant. But what was even weirder than discussing how my friend was now moving his farm towards sexed semen was how natural it came. For an hour, Austin and I discussed the differences between his dairy (Waldroup Farms in Lagrange, GA) and the dairy I currently am employed at while we shared experiences with my sorority sisters.
But even worse than that, I often find myself in these conversations with adults too. Meeting parents for the first time is always awkward, unless you are in the agriculture industry. As I met my best friends parents for the first time, they were thrilled to hear that I work at the University of Georgia Dairy. We were supposed to be planning a hog show but instead the conversation turned to our connections in the livestock industry and all of our many experiences in the livestock. As we talked we found ourselves laughing at my friends dad sharing how he had to have stool to reach into a Holstein cow during AI school.
Most people will say “you should never have conversations like that in public or with adults” but these “awkward” conversations are something I am beyond blessed with. No where in the world will you find the friends and the passion like that of what the agriculture industry has blessed me with.
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