The Dogpound Rodeo was the highlight of the summer where I grew up. It was what every teenager in Cremona wanted to attend, and I was not excluded from this desire. But, my Dad didn’t want me to go.

I snuck into my parent's liquor cabinet and stole a bottle of Jack Daniels Whiskey. Getting into my parent's liquor cabinet was no big deal. In fact, as a small baby, my Dad had put a splash of whiskey in my milk bottle to get me to go to sleep and calm down.

You would think that growing up on a farm surrounded by proper work ethic and responsibility, I would have been more well-behaved. Nothing quite blows that out of the water than the time that I got pulled over by the cops while riding my horse.

You never know what kind of trouble one can get into on a farm when you’re a kid — especially when you have a horse and miles of farmland to explore, and a cousin who is willing to get into mischief with you.

I grew up in rural Alberta, where the winters were like death and the summers were full of mosquitoes that can carry you away. It was a happy childhood; I was the typical 80s child who drank out of the garden hose and wore no bike helmet.

When I was about 10 years old, I started working on the farm, collecting eggs to be delivered to grocery stores. Some call this child labor. I call it learning work ethic, and being a farmer. It was rare that a kid on the farm wasn’t working for pay in those times; in fact, some families in the area had large families as they were literally creating workers for their farms.

Climbing this mountain at the age of five instilled in me a sense of pride and accomplishment. While climbing, I felt the need to push harder, try harder, and work harder. I wasn’t willing to give up, and through sheer willpower alone, I got myself to the summit of that mountain.

It was my mom’s dream to live in a log house, and my dad decided to make that dream come true. He began with a practice house; it was tiny and ended up being our shelter while waiting for the school bus at the end of the driveway.

Due to the issues with her labor, my mom and I were kept in the hospital together for three days. Those three days were to set her and I up with a powerful relationship that would stand the test of time—no matter how obnoxious I could be.