Breakfast and Brink Braunvieh Cattle

Breakfast and Brink Braunvieh Cattle

• Watercolor
• 20″ x 30″

Members of the Brink family have long been friends. As a college student I moved into their Douglas County farmhouse with friends. Jarvis and Betty Brink had raised a family in the old home until moving next door. Standing on a high hill between Lawrence and Lecompton, KS, the two story wood framed farmhouse, with impressive lightning rods, had been on the underground railroad according to neighbor and local historian, Margaret Wulfkuhle. During my time there, three marriages came to pass from the 6 housemates. When younger, I considered that remarkable. From an old age perspective, the odds were strongly in the favor of those pairings. Betty, the matriarch of the Brink family, included me in cake and coffee breaks, gardening, canning, whatever four hands made more fun than two. When I needed studio space, she rented it to me. The Brink farm raised cattle. One memorable experience was holding down a newborn calf with a broken leg while Doc Lewis straddled the mother sewing her uterus closed after a C-section. One of the four Brink offspring still lives in Kansas. He and his wife have successfully raised champion Braunvieh cattle on their ranch in the Flint Hills. This watercolor is a nod to them and to the times enjoyed with their family; coffee and cake, fine china, gardening, learning prairie grasses and discussing politics. Fine memories.