Seth and I had a great experience last weekend. Through a relative, we heard that there was a group of boys that were looking for a learning/service type activity for their church.

We invited them to help us brand and work some calves. The boys were excited, and had no idea what to expect. Even though they only live about 1 ½ hours away from us, only about 5 had ever touched a cow or a horse, and the rest hadn’t even seen any in real life! Utah has really changed; we are not the agricultural community that we used to be! It still amazes me that someone in Utah could go their whole life totally detached from agriculture.

Anyway, the group of them which consisted of 23 boys ages 12-17 and 5 adult leaders arrived that morning to help. We had them help us brand, and work 100 calves. We chose to have them “throw the calves” instead of using the chute, so they could experience everything first hand. Some were scared of the animals, some were curious and just wanted to touch the calves, and some dived right in with no fear! It was great to see them ease into the process, and most of them wanted to take a turn with each application and did so before we were done.

Before we got started, we had a discussion about livestock in general, and the process of what we were going to do, and why. A lot of the boys had several questions, and it was great to clear up some misconceptions that some of them had about the cattle industry.

By the time we were done, the boys were sunburned, DIRTY, and so tired, but every one of them thanked us before leaving. I loved to see their smiles – especially because their teeth were full of fine dust, and they didn’t even know how dirty they were!

It was great to have such a positive day and I hoped they learned something, and I hope they remember the day for a long time. I had a great time opening up our way of life to these boys. I may be prejudice, but I love this way of life!