new traditions.

We're sure you've heard about Richard Terry. He's our Environmental Biology teacher, and until today, we really haven't really appreciated the background and insight he provides us.

Richard collecting soil samples in South America.

He looks like one of those old professors who has a hard time focusing on his lectures, and often gets carried away on tangents about his days on the farm, right? True! But he has given us a whole new perspective on our life here at BYU. Here are 10 parallels we've drawn between Provo and a farm.

1. Instead of waking up to the call of a rooster, we wake up to the cries of a screaming baby from the apartment below.

2. Rather than herding cattle here at BYU, they herd students. Class to class, building to building; it's an awful lot like EFY, only with about 30,000 more people.

3. We don't grow our own produce here, but we do get the young, unmarried-female discount at the local grocery store.

4. As you may have read in one of our previous blog posts, Provo does turn into a valley of animals. Two instances that we have experienced thus far: the BYU-Oklahoma win, and President Monson's visit. Here is an example:

Our friend Karissa after the 14-13 BYU win.

It's happenin' to us too! Provo is makin' us go CRAAAZZY!

5. Our new hero and mentor Richard never fails to mention how monotonous his life was on the farm growing up; get up, milk the cow, scoop the manure, skin the chicken, harvest the vegetables, milk the cow, go to bed. We struggle to get up, check the news feed, run the same, boring, death, kill-me-now route, shower (or not), go to class, check the news feed, go to bed.

Veronica took this.

6. There aren't many tractors, but we see several "just married" cars everyday along our 10min walk to school. Actually, we take that back. A tractor accident once left us stranded in freeway traffic for two long, hot, miserable hours. We listened to "drug talk." You know it's bad when you start to doze off and then hear Taylor O. say, "That's a good point."

The traffic we were stuck in, "Drug Talk" being the entertainment.

7. We don't get to milk cows, but Taylor B. milks the gallon. She finished her 5th gallon tonight. Taylor O. and Veronica are halfway through their second half-gallon.

8. There are no barn-raisings but on any given Monday night, if you walk through the BYU campus there are dozens of FHE groups doing various activities. When you don't like your FHE activity, there is usually another one going on around the block. Taylor B. tested this theory and joined in on a random frisbee game, to see if she could get the frisbee passed to her. It didn't happen, but one guy seriously considered it. There were also random comments during the game like, "Where did she come from?"

Just half of our FHE group pretending to be bowling balls. We're so clever.

9. Again, not many tractors 'round these parts, but we did drive around in a mud-covered jeep with our pal Rico. No, he is not an illegal farm worker. But yes, he is awesome.

10. Have ya'll heard that old song "They're Coming to Take Me Away" by Napoleon's Ghost? Well, that is hopefully what you're listening to right now. The lyrics are self-explainitory.

"They're coming to take me away ha, ha,
to the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time!" -- Napoleon's Ghost.

we LOVE that---taylor & taylor.

P.S.- Richard, we're sorry we're not going to harvest potatoes with you tomorrow morning.