Here's Your Sign

I have anticipated today for quite some time. Besides being Friday, and who doesn't enjoy the end of the work week, today is the day our farm sign got a face lift.



Micheleen and Tod
Farm sign from the early 1980s hand painted by a summer intern. 

There really have only been a few signs over the years as Ben and Gail can recall. I've shown the original in a previous post here that talks about the Brancel Brothers operations in the early to mid 1900s. After that, there was likely an old Wisconsin Dairies sign that no one today can agree on the exact location of where it was hung or what it said. Then in the early 1980s, a hand painted plywood sign and the size was increased then at that time to 4x8 reading Brancel Farms Registered Holsteins Endeavor, Wisconsin.

The most recent look has been there for several years (from the late 1980s to this morning) and holds a lot of history. Its color scheme is familiar to anyone who has followed local or state politics as Ben's assembly campaign signs had the same color block pattern; red on the top, white on the bottom.

 

Ben's Old Campaign Sign

You can find the remnants of those campaign signs and that infamous pattern in various other spots around the farm, too. Usually in a place where part or all of a 4x8 sheet of plywood was need! Back in the day, all those signs were hand painted on wood and we are still getting mileage out of them! An easily recognizable pattern, the farm sign was created with the same look and usually, if you have been by the farm, you remember seeing the sign. I admit that I lovingly joke about it being the size of a small billboard.  With traffic moving at the rate of speed it does in front of the farm, it most certainly needs to make an impact for someone to remember; not unlike a campaign sign, right?!

Nee-Val Princess-Inspiration for the cow on the sign.

Originally adorned with a Holstein cow (modeled after the grand dam of Tod's Junior All-American) which served the farm and the sign well for years, the black and white beauties had all left the farm in the late 1990s. Even as the Angus cows moved in, this sign remained. Sometime just prior to our wedding, Ben's parents felt it needed to be updated and the Holstein on the sign was replaced with this little lady.

She is a little "beefier" than her predecessor and much closer to an accurate portrayal of what we do here. But, if there is one thing you can count on, it's change, right?! The Angus cow was fitting for 6 months or less and Tod and I were married and the red and white loves of my life once again made the sign out of date. We have spent the last 8 years "false advertising" with the sign. Okay, maybe not false. More like not telling the whole story. In that time, we have added more Herefords, changed ownership in the farm and have tried to streamline the name that we market with. Might I also add that although milking operations ceased in the 1990s and the farm sign has changed, it hasn't kept the Holsteins off the farm. Throughout the course of a year you can usually find a pen of embryo calves just weaned, several old donor cows or a sassy (spoiled) show heifer.

So why the history lesson? When Tod and I (and Ben & Gail) began discussing the change of the sign, Tod has not wanted ANY animals on the sign. I, however, was less in favor of this. “How will anyone know what is going on here without some pictures,” I thought.  Tod stood his ground. “Let them wonder,” he told me. "We could be international exporters of chickens some day! How would that sign reflect us then?" Point taken although we are NOT in the chicken business.  Yet.  Animals on the sign now could make us end up with a farm sign that has as many stickers on it as the corner of your license plate to reflect our changing/growing business!

So, here it is!  It was like opening a really great gift on Christmas morning when I got home from work this evening!  And then I saw the old sign.  Waiting for its new home.  Somewhere.  And it was a little sad.  Let’s be clear; the change of the sign is not the end of an era but just the beginning of a new one. We will keep the old signs and hang them somewhere although likely will not be used in the same way those sheets of plywood have been!

For us, the new sign symbolizes our family partnership. It symbolizes the goals and dreams we have for ourselves, our children and our cattle. And most of all, I hope that not only for us but for Ben and Gail, it is something they can be proud of. We (and this farm sign) have a great FAMILY tradition to uphold.