The County Fair, Part 2

Pat hated showing cattle growing up.  Well, he didn't hate the showing part, it was all the prep work.  It takes a lot of work to get an animal show ready.  Kids spend months walking their animal and working with it.  Then there is clipping, cleaning, brushing, pampering, etc.  It's a ton of work.  We decided that if our kids want to show, great.  If they don't, that's fine too, but they do need to try it.

Since I am new at showing animals, I didn't want to bring one to the fair this year.  I didn't know what was going on and I wanted to get a feel for it before I was thrown into it.  I registered Cole for the dairy show, but wasn't sure if he'd participate.  His good friend's cousin, C, was going to let us use one of her calves, so I decided he'd try it this year.  All we had to do was show up.  The show was on Thursday.  On Wednesday, I dropped Cole off to work with C and Renae.  He was nervous.  I felt bad leaving him there, but knew he'd be in good hands.  Sure enough, when I went to pick him up, he and his buddy were scooping poop and having a great time.  While I was gone, Cole and C were interviewed for the paper while they were out walking Renae.

On Thursday we showed up for the show, minus the white pants, which apparently is a thing for showing dairy that my husband informed me of 30 minutes prior to show.  Probably a good thing, I would have spent months searching for white pants in a boys 6, had I known.  The show went fine.  There were 5 cloverbuds that participated.

Talking with the judge

They walked the animals in the arena (parents were in control), talked with the judge, lined the animals up, and walked them back out.  All of the calves were very well behaved and the judge was great.  

It was a good experience for Cole, but the best part was the prep work.  As much time as we spent at the fair, and it felt like a lot, not once did I run into a group of kids sitting together texting on their phones.  In fact, I only saw one kid on a cell phone the entire time, and he was talking on it.  Instead, they spent their time talking to each other, playing games, running around the fair, and helping each other with their animals.  These are the kids I want him to look up to.  These are the kids that know the value of hard work, are good leaders, and good role models.  These are the reasons I hope he sticks with showing cattle.