Where I became a Cowgirl

I might have mentioned it before, but I was in Beef 4-H for 8 years.  I truly believe 4-H is a great experience that teaches kids so many valuable lessons.  Not only do you learn responsibility (really sucks when you have to feed your calf on Christmas Day!), but you also learn record keeping, public speaking, judging, fund raising and many other valuable tools.  I do know, however, that there are many kids who don't have the same memories I do.

Anyways, this was our 4-H farm sign...getting a little faded these days!

 We spent A LOT of time out with the cattle, feeding, bedding, checking during calving season...you name it...we did it!  The corrals we had when I was a child are different from the ones we had now, whatever had value has been removed and what remains has been abandoned.  It makes me sad.  But life does go on. 

This was our old chop shed...not sure I'm spelling that right...I hauled MANY, MANY pails of feed from this shed to various pens.  I was tough.  For real.  And now that I think about it, this shed is probably one of the reasons why I'm not afraid of mice.  At all.  You really can get desensitized to almost anything!

This little corner will mean absolutely nothing to 99.9% of you, but 0.1% will know the value of a corner and a panel for pulling calves.  This was our corner.  I saw and helped quite a few calves be born in this pen.  And I'm not ashamed one bit to admit I cried over a few that didn't make it.  (Ya know, I really don't cry ALL the time...I laugh a lot too...but I'm a crier...what can I say).

This here little calf shelter used to be where we'd put the calves to warm, and if need be we'd feed them a bottle.  Probably one of my all time favorite things to do in the whole entire world...absolutely nothing better than feeding a baby a bottle.

Ok ok, this makes me laugh so hard...but Dustin and I have many funny stories that start in this pen.  For starters, spring thaw is ALWAYS a mucky time.  I'm not sure how it started, but one year we got into this huge fight and somehow we ended up throwing manure/slop/muck at each other.  We were literally covered from head to toe.  Mom made us hose off outside before we could come in the house...it was that bad!  And it wasn't overly warm at the time either lol!

Another gooder...we were put in charge of feeding some yearlings one winter...we were so proud of ourselves because we could sort the crap outta those steers.  It makes me cringe to think how much feed we worked off those animals.  Ah childhood...too funny!

This was the 4-H pen...where our calves 'lived', and the closest to a red barn our farm ever got.

Second most frustrating farm chore...checking waterers.  It sucks when its -30 plus wind chill and you have to defrost waterers...sometimes it felt damn near impossible.

This is about all that's left of the actual handling area's...on our farm you started helping at branding by pushing calves.  I pushed a lot of calves down this alley until I became the needle girl. 

On this day I was pushing a different type of animal down this alley...she sorta has the same look on her face all those poor little calves did lol.

I thought this was a kinda cool photo...made me think of the whole you get to chose which path in life you take...left or right...right or left...meh, that's a post for another day...

...but maybe still a thought to ponder.