I am so proud of the boys!

So yesterday was a big day for Tex and Joe. We had about 60 second and third graders out to the farm for a “farm to school” field trip. It is a great way for the local kids to get a look at a real farm, and learn a few things. This is the second year we have done this and some of the kids were here last year as well. Our good friend Erin has managed t find funding to do farm and farmers market field trips with the schools around here. Go Erin! The kids go to several stations and learn about nutrition in the garden, bugs, compost(my favorite), and seeds. Our crew did great in fielding all the crazy questions, especially, the ones from the parents!

And the grand finale was an oxen demonstration. I was so nervous. I had no idea how the boys were going to react to the large group of kids, but I knew that this is really good training for them. I want them to be used to big crowds and kids because we always have people on the farm. My thought was the the worst case scenario was I could just do a quick fly by and let them see the crowd of kids, but it went so much better than that. Erin got the kids to circle up and be very quite as I lead them into the center of the group. I had been on the other side of the farm before hand pulling some heavy weight to tire them out a bit. Tex and Joe walked calmly into the center pulling the new sled and stopped on my whoa. I then told the kids about the basic command as they stood still. I could tell that they were checking everything out and very curious about the kids, but they didn’t move a muscle. We walked out of the circle turned around and walked back through the group. Everything went perfectly.

I must admit that I shed a few tears on the way back to the paddock because I was so proud. This really made me realize that the work I do with the steers is some of the most important work I do. There have been uncountable hours of training that got them to that moment yesterday. It was really rewarding for it all to pay off in a big way, and the boys aren’t even pulling their weight yet. Even if I don’t end up relying on them 100% for all of my farm traction I still think it is important to learn about training them and teach what I can to others.